


80 (0x50)

by epistaxiophilia



Series: found under the couch [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, M/M, Other, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:25:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistaxiophilia/pseuds/epistaxiophilia
Summary: your average stereotypical genyatta origins- but then it goes sideways.
zenyatta focused fic. in relation to two other fics, 'heck' and 'mistakes were made'.





	1. a

**Author's Note:**

> i still don't have a beta :Y this is my greatest toe dip into angst. it will end happily enough.

                “Master Zenyatta, the lookout crew is late for their call-in.”

                “Only a little bit. I’m willing to lend them a bit more time.”

                “The storm hit hard last night, and I think it’s going to come back a fair bit as this night progresses, too.”

                “It looks likely that way, yes.”

                The aforementioned Zenyatta is staring out into darkening snowy skies, to tall grey surrounding mountains. He and several others since inhabiting these ranges claimed to have a sort of ‘sixth’ sense for impending change- and for several days, something egged the omnic to stare out from the window and wait for the waited unknown to show itself. None of the other Master’s seemed to share his most recent pitted feeling, but that wasn’t unheard of. Not that any other of them were in the Shambali temples at the moment- it was the time of missions and outreach in the cold months that made the buildings less livable for many numbers of them. It was Zenyatta’s winter to weather. From the scenery before him now, it was shaping to be long and cold. From the pit in his chest, however, it might not be uneventful as any previous.

                Aware of his Master’s otherworldly sight, his companion stares towards the same window for a long moment with him, albeit not as wistfully. “I hope whatever you’re waiting for isn’t caught out in the snow.”

                “Knowing my luck, it probably is.”

                “..Don’t tell me you’re thinking about going out yourself for it.!”

                “Come now, it’s been two or three days and it still hasn’t shown itself!” He throws his hands up in fake exasperation, chuckling. “I’m not the kind to wait around, you know.”

                His friend tugs gently on his arm, pulling it before it can cross over his chest once more. A head tilts over to him, breaking the drawn out gaze towards the frost and wind outside. “I’m too much aware of this! If I have to get help to lock you in a room, I will do it, to keep you safe.” His students concern was terribly endearing.

                “I suppose I can’t begrudge that.” Zenyatta removes his hand from its grasp, gently resting it on the other mech’s shoulder. “Besides, I am more hoping this is why the evening watch is late. If you’re in luck, at least.”

                They wait for an uncomfortable bit longer before something peaks over the horizon of the road. There’s a light on the path, the watcher’s light; it’s bobbing like the holder is tugging something behind. Without another word, the omnic beside Zenyatta rushes out to greet them and to assess the extra duress in their arrival. With a simulated sigh and a few more minutes waiting and pacing, the master omnic tilts on heel and moves from his window perch, stepping gently down to the rooms below. It’s crisp in these halls, the usual residents here needing less for the warmth than their human counterparts might, but also in an effort to conserve power.

                Zenyatta can hear them talking by the main door before he sees them- talking might be an understatement though, they’re irritable and shout-y as he approaches, “Why did you bring them all the way here if they’re shut down from the cold?! You should have stopped at the houses near the gate-“, but with a single lifted hand, the argument goes silent for the Master to approach.

                The evening watch has what appears to be another omnic on a sled, wrapped up in a now snow melted blanket, but in a low power state. From a quick glance to their energy, Zenyatta can tell that the other still exists among the living, but is quite weak. He has the same question now, why they brought him here instead of the closer village houses to warm up and find repairs, and when his gaze flicks up to the three before him they answer without him requiring to repeat.

                “They were buried up to their neck in the snow- we tried to give them a boost but we couldn’t.. we couldn’t even find a power port..? And then we thought well, no one down in the village would know what to do with that either, they’re some weird platform I’ve never seen before.”

                Ok, that was a fairly good excuse. Resting his hands on his hips, “Well, they’re here now, so if you could help me a bit longer, we can take them to the stay-over room here. I don’t think the furnace is on, though….” They’d been setting up everyone down the hill where they can compact resources. Only the Masters live this far up by the temple, and only Zenyatta is here for the next month.

                Walking behind him, he watches the curled up form on the sled while they drag them away. Not much is to be seen, tucked gently away in the blanket, but the face and feet showing enough are peculiar indeed. Nothing he’d personally seen or heard of for an omnic before- two ‘goggle’ like optics, a broad face mask from nose to chin. Something akin to a scarf over their head, beaded and ornamental. Their feet are much in the same, more like shoes, painted and curved. The paint is looking a bit weary, actually. The soles are rough and chipped. They’d been walking a bit too much without repair, he might chide them when they arise.

                In a strange occurrence when they arrive, the furnace /is/ on. Vaguely, Zenyatta actually remembers doing it earlier, but for no particular reason. So goes the will of his ‘sixth sense’. Pulling ahead of his students, he gives the tiny fire more fuel while they shuffle behind. One of the three mumbles to himself, but loud enough between the rest of them, “They’re not as heavy as I would think an omnic of this size would be….?”

                Looking back to his students, he becomes busy setting up one of the several cots with a blanket that’s a bit less damp than one that’s been dragged in the snow for an hour, and coaxes them to haul their stranger on top when he’s ready for them.  “Tell me a bit more where you found this poor soul.” Zenyatta tugs at an arm while the other pull up other limbs- they aren’t as weighty as expected indeed. He takes the padded fingers in his own for a moment, armoured and slitted unusually down the joints of the fingers. Does something come out of those holes…..?

                “Well, you see, Master Zenyatta,” The one at their forefront speaks, the ‘leader’ of their crew, “We were just about to come on in after a night of nothing- when Ray stops us up, by those bushes on the smaller elephant by the precipice. You know what one I’m talking about.”

                “I think I do. So it actually was closer to get here than it was to get to the houses.”

                “Well, there was the stop by the change over, they’ve got their fires going, but… We saw a soft, green light that caught his attention, and when we came over, they were just.. Curled up under the branches there, mostly covered in snow. They didn’t react at all when we tried to hail them.”

                “I wonder how they got into the grounds so far without being noticed…?” Between the four of them, it’s no hard job to get the other out of the wet blanket and into the nice, warm dry bed. Their frame, ‘his’ frame, Zenyatta might guess now as he looks him over, is /extremely/ unique. He questions none of his student’s judgement anymore in deciding to bring him over to their master immediately. Here’s that sinking feeling in his chest again. A tiny burning pit of discord. He still has the other mech’s hand in his, responding and listening while devoted to curious inspection.

                “That’s one of the weirder parts, Master Zenyatta. The only tracks we could see left from the snowfall were half covered, and they only lead over to the…edge… Like he’d crawled over the top. ”

                “… From the cliff..?” It breaks his concentration; he tucks the arm and hand beneath the covers.

                “I mean, that’s just sort of what it looked like!” Can you blame him for being incredulous. It’s a hundred and more foot drop until you hit the village underneath that cliff. “The snow was already covering it up, so maybe he just looked over the edge and then came back… but that wouldn’t really explain how he got there in the first place.”

                “Well, then I will just have to ask him myself.” As much as Zenyatta wants to inspect his unusual form further for any information in might bear, he must be extremely chilled not to awaken even now as they poke him, so he leaves the stranger tucked away. It’s warm in the open air, to an omnic standard, at least. “And you say, he did not rise at all when you grabbed him?”

                “Ah, that.. He did, a bit. Mumbled some things, but we didn’t understand. And afterwards, just as calmly, seemed to slip offline.”

                Call him suspicious, but there’s still a nagging feeling from before- from when he stood in the window well, staring at the snow. A well experienced and intune hand lingers across the stranger’s chest- it’s… warm…? it is its own warmth- not the warmth of a powered down omnic. And then he spots it. His students don’t seem to catch on, they’re taken back when their master’s spine straightens, and he flattens his palm down. Movement. It’s /breathing/. In a swift motion he’s turned around and stoking at his furnace again, brightening its glow, “Push the bed in closer, all the way to the stove.” They still don’t entirely get it, but oblige the command. When the bed is close and all that is between him and the fire, Zenyatta leans down entirely, pressing his head and an audial to where he’d been palming earlier. He hushes the mumbling others with once again a wave of his hand, and focuses past the roar of heat behind him. Quietly. Inhale. Exhale. Heartbeat. “Well, /that/ is going to be our problem.!”

                “Problem, Master Zenyatta?”

                “Why you couldn’t find an energy port. He’s human.” If he had the ability to facial express confusion and bemusement, but alas. Instead he chuckles, covering nervousness.

                There’s a sound of disbelief to that, and he rises from his kneel and steps past the bed to his companions. “There’s no way. He must’ve been out there for hours- and you saw his hands, his legs…” They’re trying not to directly disagree with their master, but more like deflecting embarrassment at not being able to tell the difference. To them, humans are omnics are very, very much unalike.

                “You’ve seen augmented humans before, I know you all have.”

                “But… this heavily?”

                “Why not? Do not be disheartened to fall for this ruse. Even I was quite confused at first- but he has a tiny heartbeat.” His sinking feeling from before- it’s fading now. Just a bit, however. He sets fingers down upon the sleeping other once again, to be sure. To feel it rise and fall beneath his fingers- and adjusting with the pressure to show his students for themselves, they can see the more exaggerated movement of his forearm. “Go on now- you’re all running much too late now. You can see if the storm is setting too much for you to make it back to your own homes- and if it is, you can feel free to stay here for the night instead. You know where the other rooms are.”

                He receives the curtest of nods and good-byes from the three before for their hurried dismissal, and they scurry away to let their leader work, having done the task of handing the stranger over to him. Zenyatta stands for quite a while afterwards facing the door, hand on his stranger’s chest, listening and feeling. Going over in his mind, he’s trying to recall ever hearing or reading about anyone who might so heavily imitate an omnic form, he wants even more so now to inspect his frame, see how much left over he even is a human, how much danger the cold was actually posing him. Questioning in his mind why such a man would ever want to come to a secluded and spiritual place like this. Was it on purpose? Is he running from something? Was he here to incite violence? Zenyatta’s students brought him with no weapons, but there was nothing saying they didn’t leave them behind in the bushes- Zenyatta had spotted earlier, on his belt, the clip for a sidearm blade. This human was 100% the cause of his distressing reaction earlier. The feeling stops settling in him after a time, still aching his mind, and he deigns that it means the stranger would eventual wake and cause even more trouble for himself.

                It brings a fearful thought when he notices the stranger’s breath is only getting softer as time progresses. Rocking on his heels for a moment, Zenyatta turns towards him again, having been still staring at the door since his companions leaving- oh! His head has moved to the side in a slightly comforting notion, it’s facing the fire now. Returning his hands to himself, Zenyatta presses them together for a moment, concentrating, and then pulling them apart; they trail between fingers with a brilliant glowing gold, and with the flick of wrists, focus into an orb. In the same movement, he tosses it to connect and float about his stranger. If he could frown, he would at the way he doesn’t even flinch in the light of the Iris. Leaning down, he mumbles, “Please do not tell me I might have reacted too late for you. I thought about going outside earlier today, but I did not, from the discouragement of my peers. I’d be quite upset if you passed on me, on circumstances I might have been able to change.” Pulling up a chair, Zenyatta sits now beside him, a hand brushing across the blanketed form. It would be a long night. Crossing legs about each other, his hands return to focus lotus for the night’s rest. It’s a loose enough idle that, if he moves, the omnic could easily be roused, but more importantly, his Harmony could still be well shared between them without interruption. Even past his dying energy, Zenyatta gets the inkling feeling this man was in dire straits for such a feeling as harmony in his soul.

                The fire dies over time, but the well-insulated room keeps it cozy, and under his blanket, it’s a good human temperature, Zenyatta thinks. There’s electric heat pads, somewhere in the complex, but none he can distinctly remember seeing recently enough that a trip out would be short. There’s no good in a long trip that might make him miss his stranger’s awakening. There’s about five different shelves in his memory where they are down in the houses in the village. This is what they get for having a poor system of communication here.

                 It’s late into the night when he feels movement beside him- the omnic rouses easily from his meditation. Head alighting, Zenyatta hopes to turn and see the other at least, maybe rolled over in his sleep- but he’s in much the same position, laid on his back, face gazed towards the fire. What has moved instead gives Zenyatta a tiny simulated gasp, and he jumps quite a bit away in his chair, nearly toppling from it- something, something long and wormlike, green and glowing, perches upon his neighbour’s chest. It peers at him much in the way he was peering at it- a tiny, dog like face with big eyes and jagged teeth. It seems nonviolent, at the very least, and Zenyatta pulls back from his lean, instead folding forwards towards the otter-sized thing. “…Are you his friend?” His tone is curious and soft, offering the same nonviolence the otter-worm gives. After a moment’s thought, it responds mouth unmoving but echoing into the air- not in English. “Oh, what is that... Japanese? Hah, I am behind on my studies for that.” He settles a chin into his palm, sighing. “If only my brother, Mondatta was here. I don’t suppose you speak Nepali, or English, even.”

                 It looks back to its perches face for a moment, and the man actually moves a bit, whines, but settles back down. It returns to lock eyes with the omnic, ~To your soul~

                He swears he hears it in his /head/, as if the Iris itself had melded to his mind and transferred language there. “Well, that will work.” His position is unmoved, feigning calmness in the strange of the situation.

                ~The body, here. Weak.~

                “Dying?” Looking down to the unmoved man, Zenyatta tones his response with worry.

~No longer. Bright light.~ It peers back to the Harmony he shared between them, the orb still glowing strong.

                “I will help him as much as he needs, friend.” He offers the glowing otter-worm a finger, thinking against petting it like he might have instinctively done to a creature so animalistic in its looks, but wanting to give it some sort of contact. As if mimicking what it has seen, it brings out a tiny clawed hand, and shakes Zenyatta’s given finger like shaking hands.

                ~Would you truly?~

                “Of course. I help all who come to the steps of the Shambali.”

                ~Strongheaded. Brash. Egotistical.” It releases his finger to point at the prone form beneath them, slapping him with tiny claws, him blissfully unaware of the conversation between his dragon and an unknown omnic.

                “He is these things? I have dealt with many before him as such. You would think, after such a long, cold journey, that they would be here on very literal purpose, but many come simply to doubt.” The creature nods, looking down at his sleepy perch. He definitely came to ‘doubt’. “I will continue to my pledges and do what I can for him while he stays in our care.”

                ~Thankful.~ It settles down on his chest, curling legs beneath in a manner akin to a cat. It gives off a soft warmth Zenyatta was sure the man would appreciate.

                And as quickly and as strangely as that situation unfolded, the air stills and silence overtakes them. He stares for a long bit while afterwards, the creature minding none. The curiosity only drags the night on longer, and, with a simulated exhale of stress, refolds his legs beneath him and settles hand on his thighs.


	2. b

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a 'fight'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:suicidal ideation

He doesn’t wake up in the morning when the light peeks in from beyond drawn curtains, and Zenyatta unfurls his crossed legs- the lithe, ethereal friend is gone. The stranger is however turned on his side now, curled up, and very visibly now, still breathing. Just asleep, will probably rise. With an outstretched hand, Zenyatta grasps the orb of Harmony that floats gently beside him, squishing in his palm back to non-corporealness.

Staying as long as he can, Zenyatta waits for his students to rise, who had, in fact, stayed the night, to come to him in the morning before he leaves the stranger to his death like sleep. Or rather, his death escaping sleep, if he was to be told correctly.

“Do we… get a human medic for him?”

There’s no good answer for that. “I.. am thinking so, but I will want to grab a mechanic while we’re at it. I’d also like to see if anyone had seen this man before he came to be this way.”

“Surely, Master Zenyatta. Do you wish to stay here for now with him? Instead, if you’d like, I can stand watch, definitely, while you’re gone.”

“Of course, my student, I will trust you with this. You know to call for me the moment he rises.” Zenyatta doesn’t want to leave, but now there're some things to deal with unrelated to his stranger. They aren’t dying anymore, there’s no worry. His companions are trustworthy enough while the omnic master does his daily tasks. Storm and all.

First and foremost, while one of his companions runs ahead to grab a medic and to ask the villagers questions about their stranger, Zenyatta stares at the foot or so’s worth of snow that had fallen over the night. He loves the snow, don’t get him wrong, but it’s a sink in his stomach to think if they hadn’t found him last night. Distracting himself with work, he takes to slaving over a shovel and cleaning off the steps of the monastery main doors. The pathway itself will be done by more… ‘qualified’ omnic’s later, and he has the option of passing it off on someone else, but it does serve to keep his mind occupied.

When his retrieval student finds him an hour later, wet and tired (He isn’t in his formal robes, just his pants, so there isn’t a lot to get too wet and dirty), he nearly scolds his Master for his efforts, but instead hands off a human whom Zenyatta finds familiar but doesn’t quite remember the name of. They speak no English, but it’s not a problem.

“-It’s quite cold out, Master Zenyatta! I’m impressed you’d find a living soul in the snow at all.-“

“-Well, this one has a tiny advantage. I’m must confess I’m requiring quite a bit of discretion in dealing with them, they’re… well, they’re a bit strange, if I could say so myself!-“

“-That is no problem! There are all sorts that end up on these steps, hmn…-“

As they start to head inside, the student who still stood before them grabs an arm; “Wait, Master Zenyatta! I actually did find a few people who’d mentioned seeing someone strange in the past couple weeks, you should go down and talk with them. I can watch over our new friend and the doctor.”

“Alright, my student, go take over for Ray.” Ignoring a nagging feeling that he should stay here instead, he heads down the path that the other two had come up from moments before. No one else had come up to plow this far yet, so he takes advantage of one of the lesser learned abilities of the Shambali- and floats down the pathway idly with crossed legs and posed palms.

\---

He’s accosted by five children when he breaches the village entrance, all who are once again familiar in looks, but not in names. He’s taught some of them classes in the past. The brightest face, a defacto leader, speaks rushed and foreign.

“-Master Zenyatta! An omnic came down and said you found a strange man before the storm last night!-”

“-We sure did. Do you also know of any strange men?-“ With care and affection, he strokes fingers in the hair of the child who speaks rapidly, clinging to his hips while he unfolds himself and stands before them. Zenyatta would never mind their full-bodied friendship.

“-My friend said he did, but I didn’t believe him when he said it! He said, it was some kind of robot ninja dude! In the shadows, he was sneaking around he said, but nobody else saw him! And then, last night, my other friend-“, he interrupts himself, disengaging from the death grip on Zenyatta’s lap, to whip around and go back towards another of the young ones who carried an oversized bag. From the outside alone, Zenyatta could make an educated guess on its contents. “-Look! It was all in a back shed no one uses during the winter, he grabbed all of it when he heard your friend asking about strange things happening!-“

With caution, he takes the bag and lowers himself to mosey through its contents before the children in front of him. There are two swords in there, one short and one long, along with some armour pieces, clothing, and a single framed picture. Zenyatta tilts his head at the image in mild confusion, neither look like his man, and he turns his gaze back to the eager while he shoves it all back in the nice little sack they had procured. “-This is definitely all of it?-“

“-Definitely.-“ No reason not to trust them.

“-Which one of you saw?-“ Looking about them, no one comes forward to claim to seeing a ‘cyborg ninja dude’.

“-He’s not here, I’m sorry Master Zenyatta. He had chores to do. But he gave me a good description! He had, uhh… glowy parts, green! he said, and goggles that glowed too, but they were blue.-”

“-That is perfect. It is definitely who we found last night.-“ He might regret telling them later, and add an append, “-Can you all do me a good favour?-“

“-Uh-huh?-“

“-For now, keep it a secret between me and you, until I know the man is safe, ok?-“ It’s a two-pronged statement of ‘safe’; he means both that the village is safe from him, but also, that the man is safe from whatever he might fear outside of their sanctum.

“-Yeah! It’s our secret, we promise! I’m sorry I didn’t believe my friend enough to tell you sooner.-“ The child frowns deeply, sinking his head into his chest, but the omnic will have none of it; he drags digits into his hair again, fluffing out gently.

“-Honestly, if you had told me, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you to my heart! But, now that it has happened… do, do tell me any strange things you and your friends find. It is a growing stranger world out there, isn’t it?-”

\---

He lets the children distract himself and themselves with games and by giving them snow-removal related tasks for the coming hours. They’re so trained and adept at climbing roofs and shoveling out troughs, and they love the direction that the omnic has time to give them. There’s no sense in heading back up just yet… That is, until his student he’d left up the hill rushes down the steps nearby in their snow cleaning; in such a hurry that he slips and cracks his ass on the hard stone and ice with a resounding thud of metal. The children are over to the downed mech before Zenyatta can fold his legs beneath him; he floats over with a loud sign ending in a concerned but still humoured laugh- his friend is lifting himself despite the definite injury without a care to the pain.

“Master Zenyatta! The man awoke!” His is a voice of grave concern, however, instead of comfort that the man is alive and ‘healthy’.

“And what? Is he violent?”

“He chased out the doctor, fled, and climbed up the monastery wall… inside…? He holed himself into the furthest corner up to where there’s a ledge!”

“.. Inside?” The incredulousness in Zenyatta’s voice is due to the fact that it’s a straight surface- or.. mostly, a straight surface- there are some vertical scales one with great skill could find purchase on, and at the top, yes, there are some deep ledges, and a nice corner one could fit a body in.

“Yes, Master! We both just stood there and stared as he went there was nothing we could do to stop him once he started- he kept going even though sometimes he slipped.”

“So the doctor is still in good health?”

“Yes, he merely bruised her when he shoved past the door, she has no hard feelings. I left her there with Ray while I fetched you.”

Not as violent as he could be! Maybe he’s just without his weapons and doesn’t think highly of his hand to hand combat, especially if he if is weak and up against three others.

He’s startled by a tiny hand on his own when he readjusts his legs to stand. “-Master Zenyatta, is something the matter?-“

“-Oh, nothing that can’t be settled calmly. The man is just scared, I think. You and your friends stay down here, and if you see him come by, just go inside, okay?-“

“-Yes Master Zenyatta…. /He’s/ scared? Man, does he know what he looks like…!-“ The child mumbles his response, and he doesn’t MEAN badly, but.. It still irks the omnic that his fear could be overruled by his looks. Maybe it’s just because he kept walking in shadows. Maybe he’d have to show the children him standing in the light instead.

\---

There’s a pale green glow, high up in the far left corner, and a metallic sheen that glitters in the gold hue of the light-pillar at the center of the large, cathedralic room. Sure, there’s some effort to get his long-distance vision to fetch images that far away- but the tiny goggles are staring back at him; Zenyatta’s figure is a tiny shadow standing with hands on hips, and an oversized bag on the floor beside him. It’s a long staring contest while he figures out how he can even talk to the hiding man from here.

Instead, Zenyatta tempts him by reaching into the bag and pulling out the larger of the confiscated weaponry. It definitely piques the man’s attention, but not enough to rouse him from his hidey hole. It’s when the omnic moves to shift the blade from its sheath that he yelps in protest and moves to slip down, barking out something in his, Zenyatta presumes, native language. He has the grip in one hand and enough of the blade removed from the sheath that he can see ribs of green across its back, but closes it again when the man calls out to complain of his investigation upon it.

“Do you only speak Japanese?” Which seems like and odd question to ask in English. He repeats again in Nepalese to be sure, but the stranger interrupts him mid-sentence.

“I speak English, put that down!” It’s drowning in a thick accent, but he parses it well enough.

“Oh good! You should know, until my brother Mondatta returns, no one here will know very much Japanese at all… I think, at least. Maybe someone in the village does, if you’re not so good with English, and I need to find a better translator.” He speaks loud enough that his words echo across the chamber but in the tone of lighthearted playfulness. The stranger doesn’t catch on- and once Zenyatta leans to put the weapon down, he eases back into his hiding spot. Which isn’t what he wants. “Don’t you want to come down here and get these from me? If it’s important enough you’d scold me for touching them. They are yours, correct?”

“They are mine. If you leave them there, I’ll come get them on my own terms.”

“I hate to play a hard bargain, but as the reigning guardian of this monastery, I can’t actually let you just hide in the ceiling like a cat.”

An awkward silence lingers over the two of them for the moment, and Zenyatta rises the blade again to tempt him. He receives the same terse and foreign chewing out as he did the first time- however, now the stranger does slip fully over the side, and moves to scale down the vertical sidings like he had before. As he does, the omnic remembers the conversation with his students yesterday, about how the tracks lead to down the side of the cliff face. It’s something about his feet- the mechanical upgrading grips with a calculated grace that it’s no longer a farfetched idea that he had. However, there're a few times his ‘heart’ sinks when he starts to slip, and Zenyatta moves quickly to the other side of the room below him before he truly does fall.

The stranger makes a noise not appreciating his bridging the healthy distance between them- but complains less when, from weakness in his arms, a hand fails to grasp the slippery stone. It’s well-meaning ambition when the omnic shifts below him to break the 20 or so foot fall; he had curled up his legs beneath him to float earlier, and receives the weight more precariously, but a foot jams into his shoulder, and a chest hits his lap when he flips front-ways from his lack of feet below. Zenyatta can barely adjust in time not the slam his strangers face into the floor, gripping into an arm and hauling his spine backwards a hair away. The stranger is pleasantly flexible.

The swearing he gets afterward lets Zenyatta know his interjection into his ‘graceful landing’ continues not to be appreciated, and he slowly lets go of a leg and arm to let him ease onto the floor below his floating self. After a moment, when the tirade below settles down, Zenyatta looks between his folded legs, and below him, the man lays uselessly on his back and staring up at his hovering butt. In the light now, though hued by the golden pillar, he sees the silver armour that makes the majority of the man’s outward body, painted neatly with golden lines and excess plating. The scarves around his head and chest, while ripped and dirty, are beneath the grim a soft white, and lined in a similar fashion in bright turquoise instead- a waistband in the same striking teal about his midsection has all but fallen off in his crash. Admittedly, his aesthetic is very nice, and reminiscent of old and nomadic Arabic styles. Which is strange, from a man who keeps assaulting him in Japanese. Maybe it’s a disguise. It’s definitely a disguise. He can see beneath, along his chest, where armour is apparently missing, circles of deep green that glow softly- and grow brighter as the man below him regains his steam for irritation.

“What now, oh chosen omnic leader guy.”

“Well, that’s technically up to you. Do you normally slip down the walls you scale?” It isn’t a mocking tone, he’s concerned for his wellbeing, but the man below scoffs, offended.

“No, I have never been so foolish looking in my life.” What a terrible lie to say to his face.

“So, you are still unwell, then. If you are so, why would you run off from the medical professional I’d found for you.”

“Ha! In a backwaters place like this, no one here could do anything for me, no less a human as unprofessional as them.”

Brash, strong headed. If he could roll his eyes, he would, but instead Zenyatta settles for unfolding his legs and setting each foot to either side of his downed stranger.  “You speak with such… ‘spark’, for a man whom might’ve been claimed by death a night ago.”

It shuts him up for the moment- Zenyatta wonders where those eyes are lingering behind the goggles. He’s got the man straddled right into his armpits, his head behind the omnic’s line of sight now; he curves his back to catch a glance at his stranger lying there, and his head is a bit perked up. It’s an act of no fun allowed, however. With his vision impaired from the angle, Zenyatta feels a sharp push on his ass, nearly toppling his balance, while in one solid movement, the man rights himself, and /arms himself/ with the weapons discarded to the side- and there’s a blade poking into the omnic’s back before he can think to do much about it.

“Oh, are you going to stab me?”

“You would look into the face of death so calmly.”

“I’m not even facing you, but then again, I firmly believe that if you did face me, that I still would not be facing my end.”

“It nearly makes me want to prove you wrong, but alas…” He hears the telltale sounds of a blade being returned to its holder, and a clip when he assumes the man reattaches it to his body.

“I appreciate that you didn’t even think to harm me.” Tilting on a heel, he faces him, and standing- Zenyatta is just a wee bit taller than him. “You have the option to injure me without killing me.”

“I..” There’s an uncomfortable moment where Zenyatta tests the man’s true demeanor, and the sheepish response coupled with the way he flexes his fingers out nervously paints a picture. Like the Master omnic had told the children earlier- their stranger was just spooked and unsure.

“Would you tell me your name? So I might stop thinking you in my head as stranger.”

“No, continue. Continue to think of me as a stranger.” Any familiarity fostered is cut down by the tiny branch of peace offered, and the man turns to face away from him, stalking off towards.. nowhere, Zenyatta assumes. He can’t possibly know where he’s going. Slowly, he trails him instead. “.. Quit- why are you-“

“You’re in /my/ house.”

“Well, I’m /leaving/, so.”

“Would you like me to point you in the direction of the exit.”

“It is this way…?”

“.. Is it?”

He stops in his tracks to slooowly turn his head back towards the omnic, who stands far back with arms crossed and waiting for his reply. “… Have I gotten turned around?” There’s real confusion in his voice. He implies he should know where the exit is without direction.

“I had heard that you simply ran from the sleeping rooms to the center chamber, and that you wouldn’t know your bearings. I wonder how, without knowledge of the layout, that you would know where the exit is.”

“I have a knowledge of the layout of this building.”

“You have been here before?”

“I have.”

Interesting. This seems incredibly unusual that the other Master’s might’ve seen him, but not speak of to their brothers. “Unseen..?”

A laugh breaks sharp into the hallway, echoing in the emptiness, “I am so much more than you, or anyone here, could even /think of./”

The stranger’s laugh is cut short when Zenyatta lets out a quiet chuckle of his own. “Which is why we found you freezing in the snow..?” The stranger does /not/ appreciate that response, and he growls in irritation, turning back towards where he was headed in the first place, accepting the fact that Zenyatta had no interest in leaving him alone. “Oh come now. You’re here. You’ve been here. You’re telling me, now, as a leader might notice you, is when you decide to leave? Did you hope to continue to be unnoticed?”

“Maybe!? I was hoping maybe not to be mocked, at least.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.. but you made it easy? You speak so highly of yourself.”

“Yes, I /do/, it’s a privilege I have earned. You speak like you do not do it yourself, Shambali Master.” A dismissive hand is waved to him, not deigning to turn and look at him.

“Oh no, hardly, my stranger. I admit fully to speaking highly of myself.”

“.. You, you are not half as bad as your brothers, you know.”

“Is that why you climbed the mountain at this time? I /am/ the only one here.”

“How do you know I had climbed the mountain..?”

“You left footprints in the snow my students spotted. They hardly believed you’d made it up at all, let alone in the coming storm. I hardly believed until I saw you climbing the walls of the central chamber.”

He laughs, body shaking beneath his scarves- stopping and shaking his head, he turns back to give him a look. “Are you saying, then, that sort of prowess does not earn me the right to speak highly?”

“I mean, you are physically endearing-”

“I- eh, I think you are using that word wrong.” Zenyatta’s impressed he can say anything to make the man sputter, but for a moment there…

“I know what I said. But, no, it does not make me not think to tease you. I would, admittedly, tease my very own, even higher graded Master brother, Mondatta, to his face. So maybe, do not take it to heart? But if you do, I can do nothing about it. I will simply have to accept that you would take it to heart, and do it anyways.”

“I will do you the same kindness. Your head, from being hit by my body, you aren’t too broken, are you, frail thing?”

Zenyatta fakes pouting, fists on hips and turning up his ‘nose’ with a scoff, “My head is fine, thank you for asking. But, my shoulder, that you had actually hit, will probably need me a visit to the mechanic.” The omnic rolls his shoulder, creaking softly. A simple bent plate. Honestly, he will fix it himself tonight in his own room.

“I could have landed that, you know.” They’re just standing here now, in the hallway, bickering.

“I didn’t know, actually. You’d slipped in the first place.”

“It’s my arms that are weary, my legs are doing fine.” He’d noticed it right then, before- and now, the stranger flexes awkwardly, and now in the seclusion of the hallways, Zenyatta hears the servos inside hum and crack in strain. “It makes it harder to balance, though, so I might have still fallen on my ass.”

“I would’ve felt terrible if you’d broken your backside.”

The sentiment ruins the moment again, or so Zenyatta thinks, and the man sighs, pained when he tries to cross his arms but fails. With a grunt, he turns again and pads off towards the exit again. Soon enough, they will arrive there, and the real stress begins. Zenyatta has no intention of breaking his promise to the little otter he’d spoken too late last night, but also, the empathetic soul he held inside himself for the suffering the man so plainly wore on his sleeve.

It’s snowing again, and the pressure in the air reveals the storm arriving again for the evening, blanketing the sky in early darkness and oppressive chill. The stranger stares out the crack he opens from the large door he finds as a side exit. In a last ditch thought, Zenyatta takes a panicked step forwards when, despite the view before him, the man actually does move to leave. The way he jumps startled from the mechanical grip leaves it like he’s surprised the omnic might stop him with a quiet ‘ah, ah ah wait…’, and Zenyatta is equally confused as how the stranger might think him complacent to let him try to kill himself in the snow again.

“What are you doing?”

“Are you serious? Please.”

“Please what. I told you I was leaving, we walked to the door, we had our fun little argument, and now that I’m here, you are telling me to stop.”

“I apologize for taking the humour too far, I wasn’t implying an intention to kicking you out in the cold. You will always be free to stay here.” He backtracks in his comments, tone weak and imploring.

“It wasn’t a joke, I meant to leave.”

“Again, in the cold, even after last night?”

“I won’t fall asleep this time.”

“You are in worse health than you were before.”

“I will always be in poor health.” His voice grows lower and quieter- grumbling, irritated.

“If you let me help you, you might-“

“No, you still do not understand.” Roughly, he pulls himself from the omnic’s grip, shutting the door, for now, to not let the extremely chilly wind in, but with his grip still on the handle. “You cannot help me, I already figured this out. I have been here for several months figuring out that this isn’t where I need to be.”

“You’ve been spending months here not /talking/ to anyone.”

“Talking to you fools will not change my mind.”

“You haven’t even tried yet. This is a holy place not simply in where it is- but by the people who made it.”

“You know, so many people would hardly think to call you people.” ‘People’, it spits from his unseen mouth like fire, bitter in his mouth. Maybe he’s trying to rile him, but it doesn’t work in the slightest.

“This is true. Have I said something to make you question that in me?” He thinks he’s been very personable this entire interaction, but he could be proven wrong.

“That is not the… not the problem.”

“Then instead, have I said something to make you question that in yourself?” Zenyatta has been playing a very particular angle. There has been a great effort made here, between the two of them, that their natures beyond ‘true’ humanity have not been mentioned. Sure, he spoke once, that physically, the stranger was ‘endearing’, and once, he spoke Zenyatta to be ‘frail’, but that was it. Maybe he heard the children speak once, a shadowed monster in the corners of old sheds, frightening. More likely, it’s based much deeper and long lasting than that.

“…You… have not.”

“You’d go back in the cold to die without knowing if there were other kinds of being a person.” Zenyatta decides no longer to dance around the subject matter- he sees through the man’s pretending survival like sheer fabric.

“I could waste my time thinking you could teach me, and still come out with nothing.”

“Nothing is a waste of time when you think to stop your watch before it is unwound.”

The stranger falls his weak hand from the doorknob, shifting his back towards the wall beside it- he eases onto the rough brick surface, and slumps downwards, scraping metal against as he lowers to the floor with a thud. He speaks no longer; his green glow fades from where they lit in irritation when they argued more heated moments before. It’s very much hard to figure him living when he sits so still and dark.

For a moment, he stands and whirrs before the weary other- but Zenyatta’s legs do fold beneath him again; he floats above, and slowly, he sinks down to eye-level with his despondent stranger. However, he is completely disinterested in making even fake eye contact with the omnic before him, opting to wrench his head to stare sidelong at the decorated brick wall before them. It doesn’t help his mood when the omnic can most definitely hear the quiet, pained whines from beneath the visor where a mouth may hide. He doesn’t speak his wonder aloud to the thought of how much human face remained enough to allow him to cry.

It doesn’t bother the Zenyatta to have to sit with him for hours, until the sun sets, and the lights nearby fade, until only himself and his nine glowing optics light the room. It’s getting cold, but he’s nervous at even the idea of moving them could cause him to flee instead- this pseudo calm lets him settle with palms in lap. Deep in the night, he’s roused from his extremely mild meditation; a tiny crack of the stranger’s voice breaks the silence beyond the howling wind behind the door.

“Genji.”

“Mn?” .. that’s a name.

“My name is Genji.”

“Are you hiding from someone other than yourself?”

“No.”

Zenyatta had sent off his students and the doctor hours ago, thinking he might have a fight on his hands in dealing with the man. A fight was indeed had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh, i'm tired of trying to get my indentation work.


	3. c

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mondatta is not his brother

“Master, watch this!”

It’s a telltale call of his student he never really wants to hear, openly, at least; for secretly Zenyatta relishes in every moment his structurally sound and trained friend would partake in feats that any normal man would surely kill themselves over. It’s been three months, he thinks? Since Genji’s arrival at their steps. Many other Masters have returned in the meantime- the worst of the winter months pass and grew soft since the worst storm that trapped Zenyatta’s new student long enough to keep him steady, but in a few short days, Mondatta would return from his trip around North America. In his heart, he knows his brother will take everything gently and as accepting as he always does, but. Genji is on the roof of one of the taller houses of their village, precariously perched. He has a lineup of wide-eyed youth at the base of the building- and a chicken in his arms.

When he’d first started taking on foolhardy dares, Zenyatta would gently chide him for his antics- he doesn’t need to be impressed like this, but he watches how it helps Genji put on, at the very least, a fake happy face. The man is one-hundred percent about how he looks to others, and in the lack he has to looking ‘human’, in his mind, he fills that hole with looking ‘cool’. He hadn’t hurt himself yet…yet…. It’s always a lingering ‘yet’ in Zenyatta’s mind, and he stares up at the cyborg with hands on hips, a gentle motion of his palm like ‘alright, what’?

It not being the worst winter in the world did not mean it wasn’t slippery on that roof- Zenyatta’s simulated heart jumps out of his chest when on the downswing, a foot doesn’t quite make connection with a ledge- but in practiced skill, a hand snaps out to displace where he might’ve fallen. Without dropping his chicken, Zenyatta might mentally add, though he’s got it gripped upside down by the legs now, and it is not a happy bird. In a flailing of legs, Genji finds a different, more sound of footing ledge to grab the tips of his feet to, and without so much as another hiccup, lands at the feet of 15 screaming children.

Having been standing a few feet away for the ordeal, he breaks the distance between them once Genji lands, a hand musing over short heads to make a less excited path for the omnic to wade through. Posing with his prey, the chicken, Genji spouts at him first in Japanese, them warbling over to English- “Without a hitch! The children came up to me this morning, dreading the fact that one of their chickens had somehow ended up on the high roof.”

“What is there to dread?” Leaning his face down, the children can tell when the Master omnic is chiding them for encouraging Genji’s antics, “They know who can solve such a problem… Which would probably be, the chicken. It has wings, you know.”

“I know! And we tried waiting, honestly.” Genji knows he’s being passively berated, but will never show it. “It was taking too long, and the children were getting cold. Maybe it was nervous? Maybe it’s afraid of heights.”

“A bird with flighted wings, afraid of heights?”

“You must know sometimes, that such things can happen, Master.”

He kind of has him there. Though very un-stereotypical, in the grand and ever encompassing random of things, perhaps, a bird that lives primarily on the ground, may one day try to fly, but find itself immobilized with fear once it reaches the top. “Well, children,” he turns into the language they are more familiar with, but Genji is not, “-Perhaps, if we are to say this one is afraid of heights, you might keep it inside, or at the first least, under a watchful eye, yes? You must keep her safe and happy.-“ It’s a chorus of ‘yes, Master Zenyatta’, and when he turns back to facing the cyborg, Genji’s head is tilted full sideways, always confused and painfully curious when Zenyatta slips into Nepalese. “I was just telling them to keep their chicken inside.” There’s no sense not to tell him, and it would make Genji anxious if he didn’t. Which is ironic, for how often he slips in the Japanese he doesn’t understand either.

“Oh, ok.” The explanation perks him up in a heartbeat. “How are you today then, Master? Forgive me for prying, but the children also mentioned, that you seem nervous.” With a skip and hop, Genji does an inspecting spin around him, and Zenyatta sets them both walking back home. Genji maybe implies that he either didn’t notice his mood before, or that he pretends he doesn’t care.

“Master Mondatta returns in a few short days.”

“You’ve prepared everything, I’ve watched you do it. Does your brother bother you?”

“Hardly! No, never, and I know everything is ready, but. Do you have someone you might see that would make your nervous?” Emotionally, maybe, he’d opened up a bit in the past few months, but still, Genji remains as caustic as ever about his past. He retains not to speak his last name- but curious late night web scrolling, and his obvious state of body, Zenyatta knows at least that his friend was in the care of Overwatch for some time before it’s untimely fall. Nothing before that can be found, however, likely scrubbed for his own safety.

Zenyatta watches as the statement catches him mentally for a moment, tripping the cyborg up at the feet for the tiniest instant before he gives a curt reply. “No, never.” Zenyatta notes the imitation.

“Lucky for you, then. I love my brother, but he is a… more….”

“He’s a hardass.” Whipping around to walk backwards for the moment while he says he, he swears if there was a face to see, there would be eyebrows raised in mocking.

“Please don’t ever say that to his face…”, but he laughs, shaking his head.

A hand slaps softly over his shoulder, jostling the mech while they walk back towards the monastery. “I’ve dealt with hardasses before, sure it’s a bit more work, but I have my ways.” For a silent moment, the omnic turns and looks over his friend with an expression Genji doesn’t follow- which is a problem he has that the children always seem to grasp. “Do you think he would dislike me so much?”

“Ah, I’m not looking at you like that. Mondatta might press some concerns, but trusts my judgment like his own.”

“See, then all I need to do is keep you on my side, and I will be fine.” Again, he whaps an arm around him, shaking his shoulders in a ‘friendly’ comforting way. There’s no reason for him to be so unsure- but they’re heading back to meditate anyways. Maybe give them both some clear of mind to work with.

It’s always a surprising fact that, despite how wily and riled he was outside of the walls, that Genji allows a curtain of quiet peace take over when they ‘work’. They integrate well into the mass of omnics already praying, sitting across from each other. Zenyatta admits to himself alone that today would be a hard trek to inner peace for him- one or two other Master’s might notice the way his orbs float silently at his neck, out of tune with the rest of the chime they follow together. He thinks on how his friend curls up his legs beneath him and sticks to silence with train adeptness. How he does it not to meditate, but instead how he’s been trained to do it. For ‘work’. It doesn’t seem to really grant him the peace of mind it should, instead, it grants him silence to stew in his thoughts instead of removing them altogether. An hour or so in, like he has before in the past, Genji vents- literally, he tenses for a moment trying to stop it, but the adapters on his shoulder click and release, pent up steam hissing through the air. Gratefully, and how they’ve been asked too, all ignore the tiny uncontrollable outburst, but he still lowers his head, sighs afterward. It must’ve been something he said earlier, Zenyatta muses, about someone who might make him nervous.

\-----

To his credit, Genji really does behave for Master Mondatta when he arrives- he deals with the grand omnic’s mental poking and prodding, bows and says his prayers in time, as he’s taken the lessons towards, but it can only last so long. The other part of the nervousness that Zenyatta had neglected to tell Genji, was that in Mondatta’s return, for a few short weeks, that he would be going on his own mini-tour of the south. Only a week or two! Much shorter than any other. It’s perhaps because he’s owed a tiny vacation, but more perhaps that he’d begged a bit to be given more time with Genji before leaving him to be.

“-He seems kind hearted and gentle? What has you standing so over beside me about it?-”

Nearby enough to be sneaky about it, they converse quietly in a window-well in their ‘native’ tongue. Pristine and well taken care of, Genji notes between the brothers, Zenyatta paints a picture of reality compared to polished ‘television’ showmanship of his sibling. White and gold paint, new. Soft, clean white linen, his robes paint a picture of perfection. It would seem unusual for their disparity to be what causes his Master’s nervousness, but he also wouldn’t blame him.

“-He’s being well behaved now, and in the halls of our sanctum, he will cause no trouble, but he’s… Deceptively energetic.-”

“-As long as he respects our home, I do not see what will be the issue.-”

“-There’s a good and lucky chance I’m over thinking it.-”

A soft touch trails down Zenyatta’s uncovered back, tapping an index finger down his spine while it travels. “-You continue to have the toughest heart.-”

“-I don’t know what you mean by that.-”

“-You see in a straight line-.”

Turning his ninefold gaze towards his brothers near matching set, only between the two of them do they see the minute details of emotion- the tiny exasperation he exhales in a venting below the chest, a purr of a motor when Mondatta replies with calm. But, alas, Zenyatta has no real rebuttal to that. He knows how well he attaches to a singular charge at a time, one by one, trying to change a few minds a lot a bit at a time. It’s in comparison to his brother, who makes a grand attempt to sway thousands at once. “-Maybe, after a week, you might learn otherwise for yourself-.”

“-I would love to give your methods their dues, but it’s often I can’t afford to in the wake of yourself-.”

“-I think in a week when I am gone, you may have no other option. Unless, you’d plan to let my hard word go to waste without me.-” Prying into his brother’s soft spot, Zenyatta lowers himself, just slightly, looking up at him. The possible omnic version of ‘puppydog eyes’.

“-Are you asking me personally to sway myself for your human.-”

“-…Just for a week or two, maybe…. Please?-” His chin settles into his palms, elbows leaned against the window frame. “-I mean, I’ve asked the others too, to keep an eye out for him. Genji is so far very… picky. His emotions call unrestrained in moments, and he’s very good at pretending they don’t.-”

“-You’ve known him for short months, but care so deeply.-” His comments, while seeming to be deriding, come out soft and empathetic.

“-He has no one else to care. Or, no one he will give me the time of day to tell me. Blame my tough, keyhole heart.-”

“-Permit me to know, but just how human does he remain to be?-”

“-I have yet to see him remove his mask.-”

“-That’s not promising, brother.-”

“-Maybe there’s nothing underneath?-”

Nearby, Genji pretends he isn’t paying attention, curled up on a ledge, ‘reading’ a book. His eyes dart back to the pages when Mondatta cranes his neck up, tilting slightly, inspecting. “-Mnn. No, he has something to hide there.-”

“-He often flees from disclosure.-”

“-But you are definitely sure he is not here for corrupt reasons.-”

“-Yes!-”, he doesn’t mean to be so offended by Mondatta’s proposal, but he is, and swats at him for the idea of it.

“-Shhh, I trust you, I trust you. Be less worried, brother. I may tease you endlessly for your ways but, bless my own softer soul, that you’d bend me for a short two weeks.-”

Despite catching none of the conversation, Genji is desperate to catch every last moment of it- ‘knowing’ full well they were talking about himself. Maybe he misunderstands the way omnics interact, but he receives confusion when at the end of a somewhat heated final remark, that they lean in and quietly bump heads, sitting there for a moment before Mondatta pulls back, and gives his brother a dismissing wave. It catches him off-guard enough that Genji doesn’t look away when the grand omnic turns back towards him; they have a staring contest before Mondatta shrugs and commits to losing, and removes himself from the human’s prying eyes. It’s the heated embarrassment that ruins his acting performance now.

\----

 Zenyatta has been gone for two days- and so far, so good. Coming to terms with the over excited and inhumanly advanced man came easily to Mondatta, or so he had thought; and while he catches the man scaling rooftops more times than he would be pleased by(which is no times, only never would he be pleased by this.), Genji takes to Mondatta’s more genuine annoyance, and keeps ground-bound with the children on his off time. Apparently, no one enjoys this, no matter how many time Mondatta explains how dangerous and how much a bad example it could be setting for them. He is assured, that they are assured by the cyborg to never attempt anything he does, and how he is ‘special’, but he pretends enough to be human that Mondatta can tell enough the future, that one day, some kid will try to climb something too high, too precarious, that not even himself or Genji could save them from it. If there was one thing their village needed, it wasn’t an entirely preventable injury.

Mondatta is somewhat correct about his previous assumption. Apparently, it had happened before, and even though Zenyatta had told them to keep this particular poultry under wraps, it’s on the roof. ‘Again’. There’s no way this wasn’t a plant, a purposefully done thing, it’s so likely they threw the poor thing up there for sport. Well, maybe not that, at least not in front of Genji. The cyborg may want an excuse to let out some energy, but Mondatta doesn’t think he would let anyone hurt themselves over it. Only himself.

“It has wings, it knows full well how to get down.”

“We already had this conversation, it’s afraid of heights!”

“How are you so sure of this?”

“Look!”, Genji is humoured, jokingly serious, “It hasn’t moved an inch since it got up there. It must be scared senseless.”

“If it’s so scared, why would it have done this a second time.” Slowly, he looks down on the faces of children, pressing nervousness from them, but no one fesses up, not yet.

“… It’s a stupid chicken?”

“You’d be surprised at how smart they can be. You don’t /need/ to climb up there to get in, Genji. It will come down in time.”

There’s a groan between the watching children, having thought for sure that this would work, and that they would’ve gotten their chance for a show again, but alas. No fun allowed. Mondatta’s soft heart worries for the future too far and too wide spread, Genji thinks, in comparison to Zenyatta who might let slights slide for the sake of exploration.

It’s in the way Mondatta words his command that makes Genji smile, however, hidden under his mask. Don’t ‘need’ to go get that bird. No, they didn’t need too, and even if it was in grievous danger, they didn’t ‘need’ to save it, but- it would be nicer if they did. Zenyatta once told them, that they needed to keep her ‘happy and safe’. Folding his arms and nodding solemnly, he lets Mondatta know he’s ‘won’ the argument, mumbling along in Japanese that the grand Master omnic /does/ understand, ‘Yes, of course’. Genji waits for him now to be far enough away, for him to shift back into a building, before he looks back down at the downtrodden masses, stifling a chuckle.

Knowing full well that the cyborg had no intention of following his direction, he’s only sort of startled when the outside is accosted by the screams of children. With a heavy sigh, ending short his conversation, he pokes a head out the door, expecting to see, perhaps, Genji lying flat on his ass, but otherwise fine. Instead, he watches as the children point upwards, hurried, and his gaze follows to their reasoned panic. Caught on the pinch of a ledge where two ducts meet, Genji is pinned and dangling at the wrist. Perhaps he tried to grip it, and faltered- it has him held quite hard, clamped down on a major joint; Mondatta watches with a growing pit in his core while the cyborg attempts and fails to unjam himself with force. Even with his prey, the chicken, perched up now on the ledge and watching, waiting for him, there’s nowhere that far from the barren wall for him to catch his legs up on. “I want to tell you, I told you so, but I am actually quite concerned for your wellbeing.” Shouting up, the omnic breaks into the pile of watchers, musing nervously in his head for a solution to this very, very niche problem.

“I’m fine, I’ve got it fine!” Some children bark up at him for his safety, while others question the fate of their chicken. Ah, children. Genji cranes his neck around, trying to get a good look below him. “.. Ahh, make sure no one is beneath me..!”

“Do you plan to just fall?!” At the mention of it, he backs himself and the crowd away with wide arms.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve fallen from higher.” It’s impressive how he can sound confident and nervous at the same time.

“How do you plan on getting your wrist out- if you keep flailing, you’re going to break it.” And, from Zenyatta, he knows getting a mechanic for the cyborg when he’d first arrived was a pain.

“Just.. let me… I’ll just show you!” Fumbling with his caught-up arm at the shoulder, the omnic doesn’t know what Genji is getting at- until with a hiss, it pops off where he was manhandling. He falls into the snow below with a scream and a thud; in the fluster, the chicken removes itself- and, as Mondatta had /told them/, flutters with its own brand of screaming to the ground, unhurt. The children are on him in an instant, some with concern, but others with awe at his ability to shake off removing his arm and landing from such a height. Mondatta cuts through them with ease, however, and he’s about to give him the sternest talking to of a lifetime, when he sees how Genji pushes off a particularly eager young one with more aggression than usual, and bursts up to his feet. Transfixed on the leftover stump of his bicep, it’s a quick assumption that he doesn’t often remove his arm, and either it is extremely painful or simply visually jarring- with a curt command, the master scatters the interlopers before they can either cause more trouble, or in the worst case, become hurt from an outburst.

Softly, Mondatta pushes his face between Genji’s own and his stump- “How do you plan on getting that back.”

“I-“, knowing well the omnic would understand him, he breaks into his native, “-I didn’t think that far ahead. Usually, Jesse, or someone else could- but I can, I can get back up there and get…..-” Slowly, he looks up at the discarded limb, but it only serves to unnerve him further. “-.. A bit later.-”

“If you say so. Does it hurt?”

“No.” , but he doesn’t sound comforted by that fact.

“Go sit inside, the people there won’t mind.” When he simply stands there, once again stuck and transfixed, Mondatta grabs him by the shoulders- turns him, shoves him off towards, and then he finally walks, slumps defeated. When Genji catches the eyes of the humans inside, however, Mondatta can’t react fast enough to the panic; he barks for him to return when the cyborg disappears into the side streets, but it is unheard. It’s in the direction of the monastery, so he can deal with it later. Probably. How was he going to get this arm down in the meantime.

He’s very picky. His emotions call, unrestrained in moments, but pretends they are not. If he was to receive the help he so sorely requires, it would have to be Zenyatta to deal it out. To the open masses, one might make the mistake of saying that, as the grand Master of the Shambali, Mondatta is the be all and end all. But he knows full well, when the problem is out of his hands.

\-----

The first thing he hears when he gets= back is, from the mouth of his brother, ‘I don’t know where Genji is.’ He tries desperately to appreciate the honestly, but instead sputters, since he’d actually relaxed a bit on his travels. Having heard no bad news of Genji in the meantime, he somehow expected that to mean that everything was perfectly peachy.

“.. How many days ago was this?” The incident, the arm removal, and the last time anyone had gotten a good look at Genji.

“Five. He pops up every once in a while- and then, it didn’t help when a group of tourists came by as well.. He hid the worst after that.”

“Oh, well.. He’d probably hide anyways if there were strangers.” As they walk through the village, and as they enter the monastery, it’s obvious many of these tourists were still here. It’s something Zenyatta had forgotten about now, with the growing fame his brother held, that more and more travelers looking simply to take pictures and enjoy the sights, would follow him. It’s annoying, but as explained, a needed sacrifice in an attempt to get the public favor. It isn’t as if they were allowed just anywhere, anyways, and it narrows down the list of small holes and ledges that he’d been making note of since his friend had a habit of crawling up in them to sulk.

With his thrashing, the wrist of his arm /had/ become damaged (and maybe a bit when Mondatta had to jar it from the ledge with well-placed orb violence..), but in the meantime of his disappearance, was repaired to the best of their ability. The two of them standing together now, Mondatta grabs him for a moment before his brother makes a line to searching everywhere he knows. “Have you taken a good look at his arms?”

“Not really? I know they’re very fancy prosthetics.”

It’s not the most startling revelation when his brother pries at a joint, moving parts about to show the sharp bits hidden underneath- and knowing that he once belonged Overwatch, hidden weaponry built into himself was not… well. Past the pseudo surprise, Zenyatta sighs more heavily at the fact that so much of Genji was built like weaponry. This, the shuriken in his arm that placed open into the hand, the way he scales walls(nearly) effortlessly, the way he greeted Zenyatta one with a sword to the back. Mondatta outwardly watches him go through some emotional waving, tilting a confused head. “Some sort of otherworldly revelation with this knowledge.”

He thinks to keep it to himself, but there’s no good reason to. “He is such a weapon.”

“Hmn?”

“I think he might much not want to be, but it’s been stripped from him.” Turning the arm over in his palms, he takes in how finely tuned and flexible it is, compared to his own or even his brothers very well maintained limbs.

Mondatta doesn’t have any good advice, for once, for his sibling, and sets them to silence. It releases him now, to go look for his flighty charge. Arm in tow, Zenyatta hopes he can coax him out with the limb alone. He’s surely missing it.

\-----

How funny. Does Genji remember, he wonders, where he’s hidden, that it’s where he’d coaxed him down once before with his confiscated weaponry? Again, Zenyatta looks up on a high ledge in the central room, and spots the dots of glowing optics staring wearily down at him. Setting the arm on his shoulder, and alone in the room, he gestures up to the skittish. Maybe he’s embarrassed- and it makes sense that he would be, but Zenyatta had no plans to hold his strange emotional outbursts against him.

It takes longer than he thought it would, and Zenyatta sits, legs dangling over the edge to the giant pit the central sanctum held. Once, long ago, this place had been converted into an omnium, ruining the old sacred place that humans used to call their own. It’s regretful now, that once again it holds only the omnics that had sought to destroy it, emulating the past human’s traditions but never perfectly, purposely never perfectly. Down there, the old omnium parts still creak and warble, their own tune of gained autonomy. Out of habit, Zenyatta rolls his orbs from their safekeeper- an old, worn brown sidebag, and with a gentle hand, sets them floating about him. They speak with the Iris like this, but now, he only hopes to speak to the gentle creaking, sleeping beast beneath him. It sounds like a chorus of off-beat and off-tune clangs, impressively loud and encompassing, but in a few moments, he swears he hears the beast answer back more in tune, alongside him, a singsong of divine solitude and solemnity very few could learn to respect what it is owed.

Hearing the shuffle of feet scrambling down a wall, Zenyatta doesn’t look up from his staring into the lighted abyss, waiting until Genji stands beside him, slips down and sits beside him, legs crossed. For a moment, he thinks to offer the arm laid in his lap as a peace giving, but the hesitation is palpable between them. Instead, he slinks an orb from his circular web, pushing it lightly until it instead gravitates around his nervous friend. Leaning in confusion, Genji stares at it as it moves, and leans away when it rings gently- and in the moment, Zenyatta snaps out, prying the stump leftover in one hand, while grasping around Genji’s neck with the other, giving him an unhindered look at it. It’s an easy mechanism, he thinks, and readjusts the limb in his lap to replace it to where it belongs- when as expected, Genji flinches and retaliates to the sudden attack. For his effort, he receives that same floating orb to the face, clanging into his faceplate with a tone of metal and his own voice screeching in offense. For an extra lucky benefit, it also causes the cyborg to completely fall backward, and in a swift motion Zenyatta takes the initiative to throw himself straddled over a hip. The entire ordeal takes five or so seconds, and ruins months’ worth of work in making the Genji think that he was a feeble old robot, incapable of fight. It’s a good use of that knowledge, he thinks, honestly, when else would he need to overpower Genji with the sheer surprise of it.

Genji doesn’t seem to register what has occurred until ten seconds later, his body reinitializing his arm, flexing fingers. He looks between his own digits and Zenyatta’s hovering face, straddled above him still, before he goes off in an irritated tirade of Japanese- Zenyatta interrupts, “At least yell at me where I can understand it.”

A scoff- squeaky and irritated, “What is the big deal with /that/?”

“With what?” He knows with what, and speaks again before Genji can explain further, “You seemed scared of your own arm, and I didn’t want to risk you fleeing from it again.”

“It’s not like I’m /scared/-“

“It’s fine to be scared, Genji.”

“It’s not like that!”

“Why lie to me.”

“I-…..”, more Japanese rambling, with an effort he /gently/ coaxes Zenyatta to remove himself, despite every instinct telling him to shove the mech off into the abyss shortly to the side of them. “I’m not scared of my /arm/, I’m… It should be simple. If your arm is removable, you should not hesitate to do so. An omnic wouldn’t.” From the pestering, Zenyatta does remove himself, sitting again beside and recalling his orbs to his orbit- but not before offering Genji a hand to sit up. He doesn’t take it, opting to right himself alone.

“I want to lie to you, Genji, but, alas, many omnics are just as hesitant towards limb removal as you are.”

“..Wha?”

“It’s a part of their body too, student. With the added fact that many hard repairs must be done out of the Shambali proper, many omnics will sit and wait with badly damaged parts because they have no wish to remove the limb and have it sent away for repairs.”

“That seems stupid.”

“And yet, you…?”

“I… I’ve, always had a medic who could service my parts on site.” Looking up at his own wrist, he notes the repaired and repainted joint he’d accidentally so mercilessly destroyed. “I am not pleased to hear this is a part of me that might make me more… less, human.” He rewords it, but Zenyatta doesn’t know why, he knows he means ‘more omnic’.

“Hmn? I would think humans even more so would enjoy keeping their limbs on, seeing as it’s much deadlier.”

“I had a friend, several, honestly, who with their prosthetics, could remove them without a second thought. One had many replacements he would switch out day to day- hour to hour sometimes, when working.”

“Stop trying to put yourself up to someone else’s standard. You are your own person, Genji.”

“So you say. Are there still.. people, walking around.” He changes the subject, and it is allowed.

“Unfortunately. They will be here as long as my brother is.”

“.. He makes it very hard to get along with him.”

“It is his home too, you know.”

“I’m not trying to say-“

A hand rests over the cyborgs face before he can start further, Zenyatta’s head lowering and laughing. “Shush, I’m teasing you. If you want to stay cooped up until it wears down a bit, I won’t hold it against you- but I would /like/ to see you every morning for meditation, and you /should/ trying interacting with some of the tourists. Maybe not even interact, just accept that they will see you, and that.. If, they judge, /if/, that you never mind it.”

With the grumbling sigh he receives in reply, it feels a bit like words pointless in the air, but Genji rises, offering Zenyatta a hand up with him. “Yes, Master, I will keep your words in mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH ShiT WHADDUP
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGn8BfOeZ5Q


	4. d

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what, master, do i have to worry about?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:major character death and gore but it's genji so you know he gets better. 'better'.
> 
> i'm sorry this is so long it's one big remembery dream sequence there was no where goo to cut it in half blahhhh

It isn’t every day that the bars of Hanamura would receive the gift of a blonde beauty, Genji thinks nearly out loud, surrounded by his friends- but she catches his attentive attention near immediately. Her Japanese was flawed, but her English isn’t perfect either, she explains, ‘I’m from Switzerland, actually’. She’s so.. wistful in her tone, Genji falls for her instantly, her strange foreign charm, but then again, nowadays Genji falls for most anyone new who gives him their time of day. Angela, she professes her name, and what a perfect name. One letter away from what she damn well looks like, an angel, sent to give him some purpose to his life.

She’s gone the next day, from their usual spot, a barren, Shimada owned bar that Genji claimed greedily as his own. The only Shimada property he could ever claim. It’s a shame, having hardly gotten to speak with her- but in two days again, she reappears, renewing his faith in life. Dropping his friends mid-sentence, he breaks the crowd to catch her up by the wrist, charming gentleman as ever, he gives her knuckles a smooch. It raises her cheek flush in an instant, fumbling over her words in her native tongue before remembering.

“You know, I never asked, but what brings you here to Hanamura?” Shaking down one of the side booths, he scares off the current patrons with weaponed threats like it was supposed to make him more appealing.

If it bothered her, she didn’t show it, simply sitting with him with always the softest eyes. “Well.. Honestly.. I’m studying to become a doctor.”

Blinking, “.. Is that.. something you can do here?”

“Well, it’s something you travel, well, everywhere for. It helps the experience!”

“Are you traveling alone?”

“Mmmnn…no… I’m with a… group.” Intentionally vague, he leans towards her with chin in palms, smiling at her, prying.

“Just… a group…?”

Angela’s eyes dart to the roof, still pink in the cheeks. God, she had to be younger than him. Hopefully, still old enough to be flirting with her- but hell, they check ID’s at the door. “Oh, come now, you can’t just tease me with information like this. You know who I am, right?”

“I unfortunately do!”

He blinks again, sticking out a lower lip. “You say that like this is somehow an undesirable trait for me to have.”

“With all honestly, Genji, the Shimada name… Doesn’t go over well a lot of places.”

“But you still come here and talk to me, two days now.”

“I… “ She chokes back on her words, but at the very least, Genji is glad to see that she doesn’t fear that he’d kill her at the mere mention of his clan in bad standing. “I’ve said too much, I think.” Abruptly, she stands, but he moves to stop her.

“Wait, wait wait! At least give me your number!”

“Wuh-, like, my cell….?”

“Duh! Don’t tell me you don’t have a phone.”

“Oh no, I do!.... but..” Her eyes dart back and forth a moment, waiting, before she pulls it from her pocket, “Of course, yeah, I can give you my number.”

He doesn’t question the ‘listening to my boss over the hidden comm’ pause she takes, grateful just to get a little bit more of her time. She disappears again for another two days, but again shows her face. Genji’s ‘friends’ are growing a bit more annoyed with his antics and his pandering for this foreign woman- but, alas, he’s done this before, with others. Men or woman, he’s always eager for something… new. He’d settle down again soon, when she would move along in her travels, or simply when he grew bored of her. They take bets, ‘give it a week’. She’s all good looks and no personality.

They stuff into the darker booth again, him eager on heels to grind her for more information about her life. It somehow instead turns on him, and like a lost puppy, he spouts replies to anything she asks. No one seems to be enough in earshot to maybe dissuade him- but at the moment, he’s unlikely to be dissuaded.

It’s a lot of questions about Shimada-clan. “I mean, now, with my father dead, and my brother at the helm, I haven’t really.. been much with the politics of the clan? The elders push for more restrictions and …mmmm, ’bad’, trade in the city. I just sit here in the bar and get drunk all day.”

“I had heard once, maybe, that you were a warrior much like your sibling.” With delight, she presses to his physical prowess when Shimada-clan politics goes nowhere.

“Psshh, better than!” Hands slap against the table with an objection, “But, fighting doesn’t really keep you high on the ladder for long.” Genji speaks far too loudly and far too much for his own good- and Angela notices the men around giving him the eye, but he is completely indifferent or unaware of them.

On the fourth day of Angela’s arrival, Genji doesn’t rise to greet her immediately; his eye is a dark circle and his lip is bisected with a bloody crack. Lastly, he is at the darkened table by himself, having apparently chased away his friends... She doesn’t mean to sound so concerned when she steps towards him, and he doesn’t mean to hiss at her- but oddly enough, Angela ignores his complaints when a soft finger touches at his lip with great concern. A doctor, she said, she was becoming a doctor. Her care is only due to the fact that she was medically obligated.

The conversation is much more muted today, and he’s much less wordy, to her concern. Instead, she slips, whispering into his ear,“Back at the base, it’s nothing but rules and regulations.. you know, for the other staff there. Once I’m done working, I’m free to do.. whatever.”

“And you choose to come here?” He leans in, still trying to be sly despite the injuries, “Aren’t you just a glad one to have more leash. I bet you just sway everyone with your good looks.”

“Oh, well, I mean, Overwatch isn’t /that/-“ she catches herself, still having whispered the words, but seemingly not to wanting to inform him of such a tidbit of information. With one wide eye, his face breaks with his smile. Of course! Now- Shimada-clan had /know/ there has been a bit of posturing of the humanitarians in their city, but, to think, before him now. An Overwatch Agent! Instead of thinking that perhaps this was a bit of a ploy at his expense, his brain thinks to how lucky he is to having some sort of in on Overwatch instead of the obvious reversal. “Now, Genji, don’t think about it too much-“

“You /have/ to tell me where your base is.”

“I-, Genji! I can’t just TELL you that!”

“Well, I mean, knowing Shimada-clan,” He leans back, idly staring at his polished nails and then back at her, “they already know it, and I could just, find it myself.”

“Please, no, don’t, really! You could get yourself /killed/.”

But it’s already obvious he’s made up his mind. She tries to change the subject tenfold, but eventually, dejected, she simply leaves with a shake of a head.

If there’s something Genji is finding himself way too good at, it’s following the bait splendidly. In honesty, Shimada-clan actually /didn’t/ know where the base was, which seems incredibly unlike Overwatch to be so discreet; instead, he tracks Angela a moment after she heads off for the night. Doing nothing to hide herself beyond occasionally taking side streets instead of main, from rooftops, she leads him back to a warehouse. There is armed guards at every door, far more armed than previously expected, but.. he’s gone this far already. And he has the heart for danger. And, foremost, they have a set pattern.

Slipping in during a routine two-hour change over, it’s oddly quiet. This.. isn’t an Overwatch facility, he notes to himself. Not a damned chance. Now the ‘trap’ sensors are digging off in his brain- but what fools these people must be! If they’d meant to capture him and use him to the blackmail of the Shimada… Genji? No no, you don’t understand. Genji wasn’t useful to anyone there. He wouldn’t be wanted- hell, they might even pay THEM to steal him. Wait, was that is? Was this the Shimada elders paying someone to finally off him, unable to convince his brother otherwise? Of course, Hanzo would never kill or banish him, no matter how fallen he’d become in the wake of their father’s early demise.

It’s the train of depressed thought overtaking him that distracts long enough that, while turning a corner on the way out, Genji’s throttled into a wall by a suddenly appearing figure. A man- a man in a.. cowboy hat- a man with a thick beard and eyes like fire. There’s a knife in his ribcage before he can even think of unsheathing his own sidearm, and when he tries to grasp at the offending hand and blade stuck in him, the man takes the weakness to grab his arm. Genji’s near to pulling up and kicking him when they’re both interrupted by a booming voice, gravelly but ultimately commanding.

“MCCREE.”

The man’s head snaps to the side at his commander, challenging, but there’s a nightstick whacking into Genji’s attacker the moment he tries.

“Don’t you fucking think about it-“ but it’s too late, and ‘Mccree’ is pulling the blade out of him from the side, lengthening the wound and distancing himself from his commander before he can get whacked over the head with a stick again. No, you idiot, you don’t remove blades like that unless you want me to /die/, and apparently, death wasn’t what your boss wants- Genji presses his hand into the wound and stumbles, now free of the ‘cowboy’s’ grasp, but apparently his freedom was only to be replaced by that booming voice he hadn’t really gotten a good look at yet. A darker-skinned man, and his larger hand presses over his knife wound. They stare at each other a good moment, before he reaches into a pocket, bringing a comm to his ear, and then returning to fish out a small canister. Out of fear, Genji makes no attempt to move, even with his other arm ungripped. The other, more unhinged man who’d stabbed him in the first place was still lingering nearby, staring like a dog ready to eat him. He doesn’t realize what the canister was until the man presses a nozzle tip into the wound- it gives him a pained yelp when it prods inside him, but as the chemical releases, it fades pain in an instant. Biotic fluids. Something Genji was sparsely aware of but never the patron of. It was a fascinating feeling, but he could only ease down for a moment before the larger man jostled his attention again with a hand gripping into his jaw, and forcing his eyes upwards.

Those are some big, angry eyes. It reminds him much of his late father when he grew truly furious with him. It wasn’t something he really needed to be reminded of. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing just. Waltzing in here like you own the place.”

“I hate to break it to you, big guy, but I’m a Shimada.” Despite the fear, he bites, and challenges, “And the Shimada own everything in Hanamura. And if you know this, then you should’ve just let your friend over there kill me.”

“Now, Genji, why would I want to do that.” He breaks eye contact for a moment to wave a dismissive hand at the other man, but he doesn’t take it, he refuses to leave him alone with the intruder. “No, you go, now. Get, get gone! GO, MCCREE.” It’s only to the full insistence that the cowboy finally leaves, shuffling on his heels. Genji is assured he only leaves as far as eyeshot is.

“Uh, because what I.. just said? If you want what the Shimada own, you have to kill me.”

“No, I’d have to kill your brother. I have a better plan.”

“Where’s Angela.”

The man blinks at his completely unrelated train of thought. “In her room, probably? You did fall for her, didn’t you.” Raising and eyebrow, Genji’s attacker’s lips purse at the thought.

“I’m admittedly having some regrets.”

“If it makes you feel better, she never wanted to do it.”

“It doesn’t, really. Is she even really a doctor or does she just pretend for you often.”

“Nope, actually a doctor. It’s why she didn’t want to do it. But /you/ like pretty girls.”

He wants to inject with, ‘I like pretty anything.’, but.. “So I… really am who you wanted to talk to?”

“Yeah?” He raises an eyebrow, confused at how quick the Shimada’s tone changed from ‘I’m a cool badass who gets what he wants’ to ‘useless guy who nobody wants’.

“You could have probably just come to me yourself.”

“I wanted to see if you were worth the effort.”

“And you did this by seeing if I could break into your facility? I guess I did not pass then.” With a sigh, Genji laments letting himself become too depressed to escape cleanly.

“Huh? Oh no, you entirely did. Don’t take not getting past Mccree to heart- he’s got the eyes of an x-ray hawk. He wasn’t supposed to come after you at all….” He rolls his eyes, and takes a step back once the wound in Genji’s torso feels healed. Nice rip in his shirt, though. He liked this shirt…

“Well, I’m here. What can I do for you, mister….?”

“Reyes. Commander.”

“Commander Reyes. Now, Angela said this was an Overwatch thing but.. This isn’t the Overwatch I’m familiar with.”

“Not quite, but it’s close enough.”

“Ach! Genji, you idiot! You really did it!” They both startle when from a corner, Angela appears like a halo.

“Yeah! You know, you never said your base would have a frightening… American ‘cowboy’! Who would stab me in the night!”

“.. You weren’t supposed to come at all! I was hoping you wouldn’t fall so simply for my ruse.” Bridging the gap, she shakes her head at the two of them, not too kindly taking to Reyes’ plans at all. “I still can’t believe…”

“So, all those times you came to talk with me, it was just to get beef on my brother?”

“N-… I mean, yes. But also no!”

“Thaaat’s clear…” Reyes interjects, but it gains him a punch to the arm. He is completely unaffected by this.

“They set me up because they thought you would like me.”

Dejected, “I did like you.”

“And you know, I don’t mind you either! For real.”

“I am sorry if, after this, I am finding you hard to believe.” Genji tries to be harsh, but his tone fades when he looks to her face, so honestly downed at his response. Apparently, her worry was legitimate. “Ah-, I did not.. mean….”

“Alrighty, now that we’ve had a moment of weird affectionate drabble, can I continue?”

“Oh, uh.. yes, my apologies, Commander.”

“Sure, dude, what’s on your mind.” Genji’s lack of respect will be ignored for now.

“Are you interested in helping us mess up your clan or are you still content with being a doormat.”

“I don’t want to do either of these things.”

“Well, buddy, I’ve been doing a lot of research here, and I mean, a lot. My company was working along fine with your father, and then he up and died. Completely tragic, yes. But now everything has gone completely sideways for us. But, but.” To prove his diligence, he levels both palms on the younger man’s shoulders, fully facing him. “If I at least had one Shimada on my side again…”

“You already mentioned you were aware of the lack of respect my clan has for me.” Genji’s expression is one of the utmost deadpan states.

“This is true. But you are still Shimada. They have to respect you due to the ‘honour’ of it.”

“There is no requirement to this as long as my brother stands.”

“And see, there. You’ve acknowledged my solution to this.”

Firmly, Genji’s hand snaps up one of the grips on his shoulder, violently removing it. “Do not even speak, /think/ of hurting my brother.”

Reyes seems confused at the outburst and how he manages to hold any level of respect to his sibling, but. “Ok, simple enough. But, if this goes down, he’s… He’s going to prison, Genji. Whether you help me or not. But if I have to completely dismantle the Shimada clan, then there’s a huge gap in underground politics that makes my job, absolutely, even harder.”

Genji doesn’t like the threat of his sibling in prison, either. “… I will think about it.”

“If you go back and squeal on me immediately, I’ll have you /and/ your brother killed, you know this, right?” It’s a solid threat, that one. No joking, Reyes glares down at him, cold.

Fingering the soft, healing scar of the wound in his side, through the bloodstained hole in his shirt… Mn. There’s a lot more to this then he’s seeing currently anyways- besides, what would he even say when he gets home. ‘Hey, there’s a fake Overwatch come to take over the clan, and they could totally succeed. He’d be a laughing stock. Again. With glanced over eyes, Genji hums, and nods. Taking the easy way out, the Commander leads him to the door, and he’s escorted from the premises.

Angela doesn’t appear at the bar again- but he has her number, and, bored after the second day, texts it expecting nothing. Surprisingly, she answers near instantly. Perhaps she was just as lonely and lost as he was, given her situation in a foreign country with a group that seems a lot more violent than she’d like to interact with. He regrets, distantly, the way he’d treated the people around them when she was visiting in person, and actually takes the time to apologize. How he’d been so used to acting like a tough guy, and how, for real, he was a lot nicer than that. She chastises him anyways, mocks him for his fakeness, and he wants to be legitimately offended, but as they keep talking, it’s obvious it’s just sort of her humour. In a week, she becomes one of the closer ‘friends’ he could’ve called anyone around him in a very, very long time. Angela doesn’t give a shriveled fuck about his status with the clan, and her ability to carve directly past his façade breeds a level of genuine he’s completely caught off guard by.

In another half week, they’re chatting on the phone nearly all day. If she’s still playing him, it doesn’t even matter to him anymore; it lightens his mood so much that he doesn’t even care about the impending clan higher up meeting that he’d have to attend just for the sake of his damned ‘name’. He hasn’t spoken to his sibling more than a ‘hello’ and a bow for weeks.. months, maybe. The moment the elders had handed their father’s title to him. Maybe, Genji thinks, he should’ve put more effort into being gentle with his brother… but he was suffering from the wake of their father’s death as well. It wasn’t all about Hanzo, damn it. At least Genji hardly bore the suffering of losing their mother as well, being a spare 4 years of age when she died. It’s hardly a fresh wound in Hanzo’s side, but compacted with both parents fallen….

“.. I didn’t want to bring it up, but Reyes is pressuring me to ask you if you’d thought about his proposal.”

“I’m definitely ‘thinking’ about it. Even if you aren’t there all the time, I could work for him.”

“I would’ve thought you’d say no! Since you love your clan so much.” She’s being sarcastic, but he responds literally.

“Yeah! And at the end of this proposal, doesn’t that make me the Shimada boss again?”

“It’s true, it should… But my other hesitation is to inform you that we’re not going to be in town for much longer. We need you to decide… pretty darn quick here, Genji?”

“Eh? Shit well, that makes this harder. How’s about this. There’s one big meeting coming up, tonight, and before that or maybe during, I’m going to try one last time to talk some sense into my sibling. I know you have heard me talk all about how he’s turned into a frigid snow bitch in the last few months but… You know how it is? You gotta try for your brother.”

“I actually don’t, really. I don’t have any siblings. But I can tell in your voice what you mean, instead.”

“Well, you are lucky shit, then!”

It’s a good last laugh before she just /has/ to get back to work, and he hangs up. It’s a few hours out, and Genji needs to prepare for this. If he was a smarter child, he would tell himself ‘no alcohol, nothing that could impair you for this’, but instead, he goes ‘I need so much beer I won’t remember in the morning, to have to deal with these boring mother fuckers’.

It’s a bit too much once he finally arrives- he barely slips into his room to change from his ‘adventuring’ clothes to something half decent, formal, and staring at the mirror, he can’t seem to get rid of the pink on his cheeks and the red in his eyes. Maybe he just looks like he’s been crying. What’s worse? Drunk, or crying? Genji has a very specific text tone for his brother, and his spine crawls when from across the room, it chimes. Sheepishly he slips the device into his hands, lying flat on his stomach on the bed.

-Where do you think you are.-

-i don’t feel very good.- It’s worth a shot.

-I know where you’ve been. Show up or leave.-

Fuck he hates when his brother hands out ‘ultimatums’ like that. You know how many times he’s been told to leave? And sometimes he does, but always crawls back in a few days, re-accepted without complaint. Maybe with a beating, but. Noses heal. -if your so sure.- There are no more responses after that, and he jumps back up to test how dizzy he is. Ah, barely. The water chugging and waiting paid off.

It’s a crowded room, and while there are some guards that Genji has made the pretty with, everyone still manages to be on a razors edge, and he hardly can tell why. He greets their visitors fine, or he thinks fine enough, with a smile, shaking hands, handing out drinks. Maybe it’s the part where he starts serving people that irks his brother’s ire- and before realizes it, he’s being dragged away by a finger away from his group of guards; a neck cranes to catch the fake-calm expression of his sibling.

“-What, what did I do?-”

Hanzo snaps back, hair whipping from his face at the force. “-Quit acting like a domestic.-”

“-Maybe if we stopped treating me like a housewife, I’d feel more inclined towards otherwise.”

“-I’ll treat you how you act and you will act how you are obligated.-“

“-Yeah yeah. Where are we going.-“

“-You will sit with me at the head table for dinner.-“

“-And say nothing, I assume.-“

“-Yes.-“

Oh hell no. He sobered up too much. It’s all business talk, and he hardly knows what anyone is talking about. Thankful that he wasn’t required to speak at all, Genji sits beside his sibling as he hands out the big words and acts like the important piece of trash he was. It doesn’t take long for the monotony of their voices and the situation to leave Genji leaned to the side and hardly conscious, fingers tapping against the table frame while he disassociates from the situation.

In the middle of a sentence, and without stopping his words, Hanzo whaps hands over fingers, silencing their little beat. Genji doesn’t mean to react so callously, but it startles his from his lack of thought, and he jerks his hand back and sneers- which causes instant regret and his brother whips his head at him again, and they stare. Too much alcohol, Genji had started drinking again and was back to being more inebriated than he should. They stare far too long, he watches Hanzo’s face twitch in hidden rage as he pulls back his hand, and /attempts/ to turn back to his previous conversation, but it’s already a wee bit ruined. Genji looks over to the man beside the two of them, and he has the same irritation. It’s one of the clan elders- fuck if he remembers his name. Between their conversation, the older man can’t help but look over to Genji, who was staring daggers. You, it’s you pieces of shit. Ruining everything, ruining the only bit of family I had left. Soon, Genji thought, I will be the clan leader, and you will either be in jail, or you’ll be sticking your nose so far up my ass you might as well be in prison. Without meaning too, the thought of dominating the domineering brings a smile, a cracking smirk to his face that the other man catches instantly. When he scoffs dismissively, Hanzo turns again, sharply, regarding his brothers smile with genuine, rage lidden confusion.

“-What the hell are you /smiling like that for/.”

Realizing his expression was worn without guise, Genji tries to stuff it back into himself, but instead his brother's face makes him /laugh/, he tries to stifle the giggle with his palm but it’s too late. Hanzo’s expression on grows more dark, fanged. “-It’s nothing, I’m thinking about something earlier in the day, I apologize.-“ The apology and excuse are fake as fuck, and the two other’s receiving it know that.

“-I can’t believe how inebriated you have become tonight, even under the circumstances. You could not pull out any tact for any measure of time, could you?-“

Genji rolls his eyes, “-I apologized, and I’ve been quiet all night-“

“-This? This isn’t /quiet/. Fine then, brother, why don’t you tell us /what/ you do all day.-“

He could tell him about the pretty young girl he met, and how she worked for a group who dedicated their time in Hanamura to their fall. Maybe it would give him a bit of leverage. A bit of, respect. Instead, he remembers Angela’s bright face. And he thinks, also, he would be punished for not bringing up such delicate material sooner. Or, also, that he is lying. Or paranoid. The seconds it takes him to parse out his thought are brought sharply to a close when his brother jabs him under the table with his fingers; Genji jump and squeaks. Able to choke down the initial urge to fight back, Genji shoves his palms into his lap, and stares up at the roof. He can’t hold back the way his face reddens, and he thinks that this is over, Hanzo will return to his conversation and Genji will be free to coast the rest of the night, where then he will be beaten to within an inch of his life. Not literally, but maybe.

Instead, Hanzo prods him again, and he looks over, incredulous, “-W-…What? What did I do?-“

“-I asked you a question. I want you to tell us what you do with all your free time during the day.-“

Genji is flabbergasted. “-.. The /fuck/ does it matter what I do?-“ Hush under his breath, he’s begging at Hanzo to leave him alone, but enraged he persists.

“-I don’t care what it matters. I asked, and you answer.-“ His eyes are half lidded and dark, demanding. What a fine leader you’re becoming, brother.

Genji sneers, growing just as dark as his sibling and challenging. “-What, what do you want to hear, oh mighty brother? How I spend my days in ‘ease’, drinking away the time, playing games?-“ He wonders mentally how far he should take this train of thought aloud, surrounded by the growing attention of all around them at the table. If he’d had just a little less sake that night, maybe Genji would stop here. Instead, he leans, an inch from his sibling’s face. “-All the people I get along with? Are you jealous?-“

He waits for Hanzo’s response, but he simply leans back from Genji’s approach, expression dropping somewhere he doesn’t catch. Maybe he hopes his brother will shut up at this point, without having to be throttled, but it doesn’t work.

“-Are you jealous of my ability to relax all day? Or are you jealous of all the boys and girls who get to spend time with me?-“

They both know what Genji implies, and his face breaks again into a smirk while he says it. From the silent again response, and the way Hanzo’s face slowly paints with pure horror- the way Genji’s sibling looks back over the now quiet room, all eyes on the quarreling brothers. When Hanzo looks back to him with that unbridled growing fury, it wipes the grin of Genji’s face; as he realizes exactly what he’s spoken in front of a crowd of elders from their clan /and other clans/. Before Hanzo can reply or react, Genji slams away from the table, stumbling to a stand and very quickly, makes himself scarce. He doesn’t expect his brother to follow him now, but later. Oh later, later was going to suck.

Daring not to go back to his room, Genji wanders the premises, avoiding all and desperate to find somewhere to be for the time being it would take Hanzo to finish his meeting. This was not the kind of conversation he was expecting to have with his brother that he’d told Angela about. Angela- that’s right. He still has his phone on him, and though it’s very late, he calls her, not even sure what to say. Genji’s respite would be the shrine of their clan, empty to all at this hour and with the company the clan held. No one could bar the Shimada son from his own shrine, however, and while the guards were a bit picky with him, some coaxing allowed him into the building.

“It went really poorly.”

“You’re slurring- did you get drunk before you went…?!” She sounds so sleepy, and he’s sure he woke her from bed.

“I get drunk before every meeting.”

“.. why!?”

“… Alcoholism? I don’t know what to tell you, with how much I drank in front of you I’m not sure how you’re surprised.”

“Ok, you’re right, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m still disappointed. Are you going to take Reyes’ offer, then? Do I need to ask him to come pick you up….?”

“Nah, I’m going to wait till after the meeting and grab Hanzo again. He’s an entirely different person when he’s.. not surrounded by the stick in ass businessmen with no ounce of humour in them. I was going to ask him, like, before the meeting, but then I thought he would just be too stressed about the meeting.”

“Yeah, well, now he’s going to be stressed about whatever it is you did AT the meeting.”

“This is very true. I was destined to fail.” He barely mumbles from beyond his palms.

“If you hadn’t gotten so drunk, maybe…”

“Oh, hell no. If I hadn’t gotten drunk I’m sure with a clear mind I would’ve knocked one of those old geezers off their block.”

“Hey, I’m going to wake up Reyes anyways, ok? I just have a bad feeling in my stomach.”

“Pssh, don’t worry about it, Angela. If it’ll make you feel better, sure, but if it’ll get you in trouble... well, that is not my fault. Hell, actually, if you did come and pick us up… you could meet me and my brother at the same time, maybe? I’m sure, I’m SURE you’ll all like him, once he’s away from the elders. He’s cool, really!”

“Genji, I really don’t mean to overstep but… Reading his roster after the take-over of the Shimada-clan assets?... Maybe you… mmn…”

Genji knows what she implies, and he tries not to bark back at her, curled up with his knees to his chest in front of the great tapestry at the head of the room. Idly, he wonders where the shrine's sword has gotten off to. “I… I will keep blaming the other elders until I have one-hundred percent proof to my brother’s lack of innocence. It is just the way I am going to be, Angela. Even if tonight goes badly and I end up coming back to your house alone.”

“I know, Genji, I really know.”

Hearing the large doors creak open behind him, Genji knows exactly who it is from the silence and the way his brother taps in so quietly. “I’m leaving you on call but I’m putting the phone down.” He manages to whis[er into the receiver before the distance is brought between them. Genji doesn’t even turn around, he’s staring forward at the empty weapon hanger, places the phone down on its wooden base upright.

“-Genji-“ Hanzo’s tone is oddly soft, much softer than Genji was expecting. Maybe he feels bad, somehow…?

“-Well, you cut that short. I was expecting it to take you a few hours more.-“

“-You shouldn’t be confused why it had to be cut short. No matter. It was all things that could wait for another day.-“

“-What, you, be patient? Or rather, them, be patient. Are we going to have a fight or what.-“

“-We might. Are you here to mourn our parents?-“ Pushing directly behind him, Genji feels the soft touch of sandal feet poke into his back.

“-A little. I think, soon, it will be my last chance to do so.-“

From behind the receiver, Angela strongly regrets not practicing her Japanese. From behind their quiet tone and rushed fluentness, she parses little. After a minute or so, Reyes’ snatches the phone instead, half-dressed and not willing to take any shit tonight.

“-Perhaps.-“

“-You could come with me, you know.-“

“-I want to… I do.. But without me, the clan, will fall.-“ Why does Hanzo sound so morose?

“-It’s torturing you to death anyways. What’s the problem.-“

“-It is my duty to uphold it. My weakness is not the fault of hundreds of generations before us.-“

“-You know what I’ve learned since doing my own thing outside of all this? Fuck tradition. And fuck duty.-“

“-You’ve made this very plain. Brother… I will miss you.-“

“-My offer still stands.-“

“-Tell our mother and father that I’m very sorry.-“ His voice cracks from the strain, the genuine sorrow in the siblings breaking from each other.

Wait. That, that is a different implication. Genji wishes his brain catches it sooner what he implies, but (sort of)thankfully enough, instinct catches the sound of a blade being removed from its sheath. A hand snaps to its instinctive sidearm-! But, he’s in his business attire, and is unarmed. Not even a gun- not that he thinks he could shoot his brother if he needed too. He’d rather die.

When Genji turns and attempts to defend himself from the coming blow to the back of his neck, he thinks, distantly, that ‘rather dying’ might actually be the option here. He catches the blade with the back of his arm and screams, it slices off a massive chunk of flesh in its wake, and Genji can’t seem to get onto his feet fast enough before Hanzo can pull back for another swing. Facing him now, he can’t. He can’t see his brothers face- it’s obscured in shadow, in hair, black, wild. His eyes are dots of white, inhuman, unyielding. Caught in like a deer in the headlights, Genji raises that same, injured right arm to defend himself from the second blow, and already wounded, it’s another screech of white hot pain when the blade simply chops through muscle and bone like butter. He doesn’t know how to react when he feels the severed limb fall into his lap, blood flying from the wound like he’d only seen in the movies, but the startling realization of what he’s done stops up Hanzo as well. From the back of his mind, a booming voice screams GO, GET UP. GET UP AND RUN. It’s enough to try to get him to his feet again, hyped by adrenaline, but woozy and desperately grasping at the clean-cut wound that threatens to bleed him before he can even think to do something about it.

Apparently, Hanzo is caught up on himself much longer that Genji would expect a man who’d already decided to kill his brother to be, and he makes it quite a bit away before he hears his sibling stomping away behind him. If there was a spare thought away from ‘oh god my arm is off and my brother is going to kill me’, he might wonder where all the guard have gone, as he holes up in a nearby building, ripping pieces of his outfit off to tie off the flow of blood that threatens him worse in the moment. Wait- the phone! Angela must’ve heard that, and he swears he cried like he was becoming murdered. Would her people come for him, now? Injured and desperate? Or would he be considered a lost cause? Would Angela beg for his safe keeping, or was all her kind words falsehood? There’s no point is stopping the sobbing that overtakes him, the pain and how sick it makes him feel. It must’ve all been fake. Much akin to how useless he was to his sibling now, he mustn’t be worth much to the dark shrouded organization the woman worked for. If he was useful, he should’ve been able to protect himself better. He should’ve known one day he’d snap, and their daily fights would become deadly. But, Hanzo..! As if his memory had been wiped clean of their boyhood, best friends who quarreled so sparsely that none would ever think the boys would be apart.

For a while, Genji thinks maybe here that he will be able to wait out until either he is saved, or bleeds out quietly, but no. He’s left a beautiful trail of blood for his brother to sniff out, and he hears him calling, quietly, from the doorway.

“-Genji…. Come out… I’m sorry….-“ It sounds like a fucking robot. Not an omnic- but a true, mindless robot.

He’s either lying, or he’s simply ‘sorry’ about ‘having’ to murder him and will do it anyways regardless. Again, Genji thinks, ‘fuck duty’. There’s no amount of social pressuring that Genji would fall for that would make /him/ kill his sibling. Still drooling and sobbing from the pain, he's taken over by rage at his brother’s call- he stands, sneaking around corners. He could fight that weapon away from him, and he could give him a taste of his own medicine. For sure. They were trained both the same- but Genji, Genji had always been a step up from his brother, even past their age difference.

When he spots the darkened frame in the doorway, it spots him just the same; Genji lit up from the front, wounded and desperate, bloody and crying. While he was about to simply rush him, testing his faith in himself between either wrestling the weapon away or simply becoming stabbed, Genji’s caught up when Hanzo pulls the blade close to his shoulder, and from his tattoos, the glowing obvious of the dragons imbedded there warble up from his flesh. They have absolutely no interest in rising for the task that Hanzo demands of them, but with force and will, and pain, they rip from his skin with screeches and flashes of white-blue energy. Genji barely has the time to scream, weaponless, he has no way to fight back against an assault like /this/, his own dragon un-risable from this position. Or at least, in no way he was familiar with. They called for battle and fight, and without a weapon, what kind of fight would it be. Re-energized but barely, he turns on heels back to where he came, but it was far, far too late.

Unable to stop their master’s command, Genji swears he feels the teeth of the non-corporeal beasts nip deep into him first, before when they pass, and the energy rips apart his skin in their wake. In a desperate bid to escape their wrath, he makes a move towards a window without thought, and shatters through it. He forgets that this building is on the leading edge of the great wall and cliff that surrounds the grounds… But anything is better than being ripped apart externally and internally by wayward spirits. He barely remembers the fall. He sort of remembers the landing, but just the moment his legs compact with terrifying, painful cracks beneath him.

He remembers the gold light that keeps him, barely, alive, and abates the pain for a short time before drifting to sleep.

\------

Angela, despite her age, had completed her medical degree years ago, and is, in fact, the head of this operations Medical team. When Reyes yelps from her phoneline, and b-lines it to the barracks, she knows tonight is going to be very long, and very tedious. And possibly, useless. Don’t take the apathy the wrong way, she DOES like the younger Shimada, as a close acquaintance, or even maybe a friend, if she thinks hard enough about it. He’s very endearing, in his own special way. And honestly, an adept fighter she would absolutely love to have in their ranks, be it Overwatch, her normal place of work, or Blackwatch, whom she traveled with for now. Depending on how well he survives tonight, however, would be a trial to how good of a fighter he would remain afterward. She is a fantastic scientist to prosthetic enhancements and nanite healing technology, but she can’t raise the dead…. ‘yet’. No, no raising the dead. If her new friend proves to be fatally wounded tonight, it would be his last, and they’d just have to deal with the elder Shimada the hard way. He’d have clear murder on his slate at that point, at least.

Traveling with Reyes and the rest of their crew over, it’s not great when they arrive. They spot, from the side of a building on the cliffside, a bright flash of blue, and she swears, creatures of this pure light, blasting through a nearby wall and out into the night sky, screaming and exploding with energy. There’s no time to question it, however, because from that same wall, with a window, they spot their man. Flinging himself out of it. And down the thirty-foot embankment. There’s absolutely no way he is still alive. With her own yell of exasperation and worry, she flees herself from their truck without order. Now, she hadn’t had THAT much time practicing with her new invention- the Caduceus Staff! She calls it. Very original. Very, handy actually, for the current circumstances. It creates a beam of compressed biotic fielding, promoting muscle regeneration, or in the case of the very near dead, promoting the brain to continue functioning without a solid heartbeat. She has no idea how uncomfortable that will feel, having never tested it on the near dead, but if Genji survives, then she will he sure to ask him.

He is in incredibly rough states- worse than she’d imagined he’d be. The shattered legs from the seen fall, the removed arm she would guess from the initial attack, that was all things they were aware of. It’s the way his skin is and clothes have been butchered, to such minute degrees, that she knows it wasn’t simply his brother hacking away tiny chunks from him. It would’ve taken him much longer than the fifteen minutes spared to do such a thing manually. Barely breathing, he takes to the staff well, his scanned vitals poor.. but alive. He does, however, whine while she does it, and even thinks to prop himself up on the remaining arm- which she stifles immediately, leaning down with him and coaxing him back flat with soft words and a gentle push. It takes less than a minute for the rest of them to catch up with her, and she looks up to the window-well when Reyes sneers up at him, weapon brandished. It’s the sibling Shimada. He stares down, she thinks, much akin to a cat whose bird had flown just slightly out of reach. When there’s an assault rifle pointed at his head, however, he ducks back inside, to Mercy’s chagrin. She would’ve liked if Reyes had just shot him then and there instead of, inevitably, waiting to do it later.

Keeping Genji alive would be a fine taste of her skills in her craft. The armoured vehicle they stormed here with is hardly an ambulance, but it has everything she needs. All the men Reyes took with him crowd into a corner and watch as she works, with empathy for the injured boy and with admiration to her seemingly lack of empathy. Despite all being hard-ass kill guys in their day job, the only one who doesn’t seem just a little squicked at the damage is Mccree, and when she needs it, she barks to him for assistance. It’s not like that, again she would say. She cares so deeply for all her patients- but it’s the kind of thing that, in the moment, you cannot let get in the way. She /could/ take a pause to stare at his injuries, tsk and cry over his wounds, but those are moments she instead spends finding a remaining vein to tap into, stem off the more intense bleeding of his arm with a cauterize(they aren’t getting his arm back to reattach..), and settle him as far as she can here. By the time they arrive, she’s honestly done what she can for him for the time being.

In their currently borrowed building, they’ve at least taken the time to make a good, nice impromptu ‘hospital’ for her and her sparse few nurses. Some are there for minor injuries, fist fights or illness, but everyone removes when they bring in a near-literal corpse. It’s completely unexpected that, at least not yet, anyone was to be there with injuries so great. It’s twelve hours in of near literal no sleep, not even sort of enough help with her(more doctors were supposed to arrive in the future for when they actually planned to raid the Shimada-clan.), when Genji sighs his last, pained breath. There’s no sense in prolonging his suffering anymore- there’s barely a man to keep going, and he’s lost so much of his mass and blood… He would absolutely never be the same man he was before. Reyes had given her full discretion at his hospitalization, she noted with confusion, wondering why he thought the man would be so important to waste so much resources on. Not to complain, however. Not a moment she thought she’d be so attached and heartbroken when after all her effort, he succumbs. Once he is gone, she takes the time to fret it, laying her face on the counter nearby, so tired, sobbing quietly to herself. With the trial considered done and over, she takes down the time, and they leave her to clean up her tools. Angela wishes instead they’d taken away his body first, as it’s hard not to get teary again every time she glances to his stilled form.

She shrieks when it moves. It’s been ten minutes, since he took his last sip of air. Maybe she’s seeing things. Alone, and tired, exhausted even. She bites her lip- from her cry, Reyes bursts in, in an instant, ‘What, what? Dr. Zielger?’ But she doesn’t have an answer for him. Arms curled up to her chest, she stares at the body, waiting. It’s for them alone to see, like they’d seen fly off into the night sky earlier, but green instead, writhe from his body. It starts off small, a worming creature of fur, teeth and pained screaming, but it grows, it’s writhing length taking up the size of the floating cot, and then, its tail, overextending. Claws sink into the bedframe, despite it’s lack of mass, Mercy watches in horror and fright while the beast screams to it’s master in Japanese.

-RISE. RISE AND LIVE, YOU FOOL. YOU’VE BEEN SAVED. YOU CAN NOT DIE NOW.-

She barely understands it past the screaming and growling, but as she attempts to back up, she knocks into a shelf, and its big, fanged head turns to her, demanding.

-YOU.- A clawed hand points at her, and then back to the man it straddles over. -YOU MUST. DO WHAT YOU DID BEFORE, TO MAKE HIM RISE.-

“I… I can’t! He’s gone! There’s nothing else- there’s no point!”

-IF I LIVE, HE LIVES.- Again, it points at her. -THERE IS TIME. HE IS NOT FATED TO FALL HERE AND NOW…. PLEASE.- Bowing it’s head, the dragon appeals to her with wide, desperate eyes.

And how can you say no to something like that- but she rooted to the ground, in fear, and sleepiness. Behind her, suddenly, Reyes presses, “Angela, are you doing this or not.” Wow, you sound so completely level headed, Gabriel, she wonders how he can possibly manage, but he isn’t the head of Blackwatch for nothing. Her staff, at the side, long since discarded for more long-term medical treatment, she grabs it and alights the corpse before her. It’s no use. It can’t raise the dead.

The beast above him roars again, directly into his half covered and destroyed face, and once it is done, silence reigns beyond the quiet hum of her invention. And then, he breaths, a tiny, pained breath. And another. He’s been without oxygen for far too long. There’s absolutely no way.

It’s been a week since then. The dragon dissipated shortly after its master’s revival, but Genji had not awoken. She can’t blame him. His legs destroyed by his fall, she’d removed them above the knee in an effort to stem bleeding. His other hand barely held together, she thinks, if he rises, that she would be might-as-welling removing it also. There’s so little of his own skin left, he’d become terribly susceptible to infection, but even in their less than perfect bay, Genji has done nothing but recover… ‘nicely’. Other than refusing to wake.

She’s sitting by his bedside, reading a book in wait when she receives the ‘good news’. They’d been forced to postpone their attack on Shimada headquarters, but some two days after the attempted fratricide, Hanzo had just… disappeared. Their few plants had come back with nothing, and Reyes had seen him the day after they’d stolen his brother. He speaks to Angela personally, ‘When the other Shimada came trying to claim his brother’s body, I’d told him he died and that there was no chance I’d be giving up the corpse without a fight. I’d thought he’d press the matter, but instead, it’s like the light just left his eyes. What light there was left.’ So, do you think he regrets his actions, then? She replies, tersely, unbelieving. ‘Well, since he’s disappeared now. I guess he didn’t do it to get a full handle of the clan like I’d originally thought, at least. Whatever.’

The conversation drawls to simply how the sibling was doing. Well enough, Angela supposed. He gets ‘better’ every day. They take him off his forced coma when he struggles against it, and without the machines, he breaths well himself. She hopes this isn’t the kind of recovery her staff might give to anyone she uses it on, too short and forced. Painful. He always looks like he just.. hurts. Instead, she blames that beast he’d summoned in his death. Like pictures she’d seen, and stories she’d heard and not believed. A Shimada’s dragon.

She’s hardly paying attention to the whiny sighs Genji emits later one evening. Until he does it again, and it sounds more like a mumbling word- Angela looks behind her book to a pair of half-lidded, sad brown eyes. In an instant, she drops it and goes to his side to aid whatever he grumbles for.

It’s unsurprising when she gets close enough to hear his mumbles, in his native tongue. “-Why am I alive.-“

She does her best to answer back in Japanese. “-You.. did not want to die.-“

“-That is not true.-“

“-If you did, you’d be dead.-“

“-I want to die.-“

“-No you don’t.-“

**Author's Note:**

> my hard drive is failing so i dont know why that translated into 'work on new fics instead of the ones you're currently writing' but it did also genyatta is my fav because zenyatta is my fav i'm zennie main for lyf. if you detest oc's, this has a few inbetween chapters that are very oc oriented but it goes right back into pure genyatta manpain again.


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